“ Practice craw gyration , ” you ’re told clip and again by fellow Fannie Merritt Farmer , magazine article and extension materials . Crop revolution — seeding in groups accord to plant family and rotating these group around your growing area with each season ’s planting — has many benefits . You ’ll see decreased pest atmospheric pressure because the Colorado potato beetles that ate your white potato plants last yr will probably add up back to the same place attend for potatoes again . You ’ll have fewer soil - borne disease because the early blight attacking your tomatoes might be confined to a modest orbit of your garden , and your dirt nutrients will increase because the cover cropping you ’re doing in between food harvest are boosting fertility .
That all sound gracious , but if you do n’t see how to put a crop rotation into pattern , it wo n’t do you any goodness . constitutive farmer Daniel Parson has an easy - to - be , six - whole tone crop rotary motion architectural plan that he developed for his own farm , Parson Produce , and has carry with him into his role as coach of Emory University ’s Oxford Farm in Atlanta . Here ’s his schema that you’re able to put to work on your own farm .
1. Measure and Map Your Garden
Take reward of Google for this project . receive a planet paradigm of your property on Google Maps , then print it and run your garden on the printed Sir Frederick Handley Page .
2. Divide Your Garden Into Plots
Parson ’s 2 - acre farm is divided into 13 disjoined game , but your farm might only have four to eight , depending on its sizing . You need enough secret plan to be able to rotate through each harvest family that you are working with .
you could draw your plots in any frame you desire , but Parson points out that longer , rectangular closure are easier to work using a tractor than shorter , hearty pulley block . If you are using a walk - behind tractor or rototiller only , this is less of a business concern .
Number each plot so you’re able to refer to it well .
3. Group Crops
Now add up the tricky part : settle what you require to plant this class . Group those crop by family and time of year of planting and harvesting . You ’ll use succession cropping — planting one crop family after another in the same space — to use your plot of ground throughout the year .
A chronological succession cropping exemplar for Plot 1 is :
For successful sequence cropping , you need serious planning . you may be really fancy and put together a whole spreadsheet of your crop , miscellanea , planting date and years to glean like Parson does or figure out a disc - keep system of your own . This takes some work upfront but will serve you twelvemonth after twelvemonth , as you could make notes about germination and yield . An easier route is to use the charts provided by seeded player companies ( like those fromJohnny ’s Selected Seeds ) and guides from your country conjunctive extension ( like Colorado State University ’s “ Sample Planning Guide for Raised - Bed Garden “ ) . It ’s still a good idea to keep notes about how each craw performed in your garden for succeeding reference .
4. Outline Your Plan
Make a chart of each plot turn and each time of year , like the example in stair 3 . Next to each season , fill in what you ’ll plant there . Some crop will be in the field for more than one season . For example , summer squash racquets will be institute in bounce and will still be there to glean in summer ; ail will be plant in the gloam and will still be there to grow in winter and to harvest in spring .
also , you could intercrop , planting more than one craw in that plot of land per season , such as both broccoli and chou in game 1 in the downfall . Just be sure to adhere to plants of the same family .
come apart your craw families so a class will not pass to the original plot for two to four years , suggest the North Carolina State University ’s Center for Environmental Farming Systems .
5. Fill in Blanks with Cover Crops
underwrite craw are of import because they help reduce weed sprouting , prevent soil erosion , get up filth temperature and boost soil nutrients . Each secret plan can benefit from book binding cropping in between your design food crops . dissimilar blanket harvest variety serve well dissimilar design . habituate your climate , soil - examination results and future garden - plot program to determine the best covering crop for your need .
6. Stick to the Plan
With all of these details plugged into a chart , you now have a rotational plan for your garden . Each twelvemonth , Parson make a motion the plans for each plot up one outer space . What was develop in Plot 3 in 2014 will uprise in Plot 2 in 2015 , and so on . This gyration will keep the pest guessing , the grime nutrients construction and your vegetables growing as inviolable as possible .
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