Plan this year’s crop rotation

Even if you’re growing on a small scale, rotating your crops is important. Grow the same crop in the same soil over and over again and you’re inviting problems, like a build-up of pests and diseases, or nutritional deficiencies in the soil. Another advantage of moving crops around your plot is that you can follow one crop with another that likes growing in the conditions the previous crop left behind: a win-win situation.

Brassicas need nutrient-rich soil, so usually follow nitrogen-fixing legumes. Photo: Shutterstock

The easiest way to plan is to group vegetables together according to requirements. In the simplest rotation, they are normally split into three groups:

Move onions around the plot to prevent a build up of diseases such as white rot. Photo: Shutterstock

Move each group around three different areas of your plot each year so that the root vegetable, onion and legume group follows your potatoes, and the year after that the root veg and legumes are followed by brassicas. Legumes fix nitrogen in the soil, so leave it fertile – perfect for the nitrogen-hungry brassica crops that will follow. With their dense foliage, potatoes are brilliant at shading out weeds, leaving a clean bed for the crop of root veg and legumes following on.

If you have a bigger plot, you can split the rotation into four or five groups, separating out your root vegetables from the onion family and the legumes. If you grow other potato family vegetables outdoors (aubergines and tomatoes for example, both also members of Solanaceae), group them with the potatoes.

Other annual vegetables such as salads and lettuce, cucurbits such as pumpkins and courgettes and sweetcorn can just be slotted in wherever you have gaps. Perennial vegetables such as globe