by Raymond Alexander Kukkee

Created on: September 08, 2008   Last Updated: April 27, 2012

Leaning over the fence and smiling, your neighbour showed you her old, dog-eared garden plan book. It has everything in it. She draws little blueprints, diagrams that show all of the vegetable rows numbered, and even what was planted in them. She has a drawing showing what was planted every year. You tried hard not to laugh out loud, but did anyway. Especially when she showed you the page showing what she had planted fourteen years ago in row number nine. That was the first year she moved in, and her garden has always looked great.

"If your soil is really poor, peas and beans should always follow corn" she said, pointing out the same row on her plan for the following year. Why does she do that? Gardeners with a green thumb know.

Maybe your own garden did somehow seem to look better a few years ago. You always plant everything in the same location, in the same order. This year the corn looks yellow and stunted. The potatoes are scabby . The carrots have hairy roots all over them. The peas are moldy-looking instead of being rich, healthy green. The onions were so full of bugs last year you didn't plant any this year at all.

Does this sound like your garden? Perhaps it really is time to rotate your crops in that little garden, the same way your neighbour does. Get out a book and pencil. It will be helpful to start keeping records too. Start by planting the corn where you have always planted the peas. Plant the potatoes or peas where you had the corn. Move the onions way over to the other side of the garden.

Why? Specific plants use up the same specific minerals and nutrients from the soil every year. Each successive crop depletes those elements further. For instance, corn demands a lot of nitrogen. Unless you're using commercial chemical fertilizers, each subsequent crop will be less and less productive. Weaker plants encourage the buildup of disease and insect attack.

Enter crop rotation. If you plant peas or beans in the location you had corn growing in last year, the peas and beans will replace the nitrogen in the soil. They store nitrogen from the atmosphere in nodules on the roots. When the roots decompose, the nitrogen is left in the soil by nitrogen-fixing bacteria, enriching the soil.

Peas and beans need to be moved regularly regardless, as they are subject to virus and fungus problems, but keep in mind they replace nitrogen in the soil, an advantage for other vegetables. The fact that you can even avoid using artificial fertilizes entirely by rotating

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