Crop Rotation | Grow your Own | Edible Garden Design

Crop Rotation – what is it and do you need it in your garden? Let’s begin at the (nearly) beginning and discover what crop rotation is.

The Historical Background of Crop Rotation – a whistlestop tour

Medieval Farming in Britain and Europe

It is a phrase which you may have first heard during a history lesson at school. Does this sound familiar?

Crop Rotation is a method of cultivation used to improve soil fertility and plant health and therefore crop yields. Crops are grouped and grown according to their family.

The Medieval field system worked on a 3-course system of rotation. By Medieval, I’m referring to the period 900 – 1400 approximately. They farmed these open fields as strips rather than whole fields. In other words, each tenant (freeholder or villein) had a certain acreage of land, but it was split up among different parts of the larger fields.

3-course Crop Rotation

	Field 1	Field 2	Field 3
Year 1	wheat or oats	field beans or peas	fallow
Year 2	field beans or peas	fallow	wheat or oats
Year 3	fallow	wheat or oats	field beans or peas

When left fallow in the third year for cattle and livestock were grazed on the field. The resultant manure helped improve the soil, as did the inclusion of peas and beans – a leguminous crop which helped fix nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen is one of the three major plant nutrients.

British Farming in the 18th Century

The farming and crop rotation breakthrough came in the early eighteenth century with the development of a 4-course rotation farming system. Viscount Townshend is credited with introducing this new method of crop rotation on his farms.

4-course Crop Rotation

	Field 1	Field 2	Field 3	Field 4
Year 1	Wheat	Clover	Oats or barley	Turnips
Year 2	Clover	Oats or barley	Turnips	Wheat
Year 3	Oats or barley	Turnips	Wheat	Clover
Year 4	Turnips	Wheat	Clover	Oats or barley

The benefits were mainly that animals could be grazed two years out of four, thereby increasing the fertility of the land.

Although a 4-course rotation farming system had been pioneered in sixteenth century Belgium, it was the take up of the system by the British combined with other agricultural related inventions and processes that led to the Agrarian Revolution. It is generally accepted that the Agrarian, or Agricultural Revolution in Britain began a fundamental change which formed the driving force that became the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century.

A little aside here. If you look at the blog article Growing Methods for Gardeners, you’ll read about many types of cultivation. Some of these pre-date crop rotation, but happened in other regions of the world. So sometimes get ignored…

Agriculture, Walled Kitchen Gardens and the Cottage Garden

One of the aspects of crop rotation which can be overlooked is that it started out as an agricultural system based on a monoculture; ie, one crop was grown per field. With the rise of the large, separate walled kitchen garden, which in Britain was from the sixteenth century, crop rotation became domesticated.

These kitchen gardens could be anything from 1 acre to 9 acres in size, if one includes the external gardens that surrounded the walls but were still part of the overall kitchen garden. Dividing the garden into sections made planning, growing and harvesting much easier tasks. The quantities of food produced were large. They had to be sufficient to feed a large household, possibly 25 – 80 people, year-round.

The crops grown began to change as grazing cattle in a walled kitchen garden was most definitely not on the head gardener’s list!

Down a few social notches, the cottage garden food crops change far more slowly. For example, potatoes weren’t a staple in English cottage gardens until some 200 years after their introduction into the country.

However, whilst the crops growing differed, the method of growing tended to be the same for the majority of hardy crops. By the nineteenth century, crop rotation had become the normal way in which vegetables were organised and grown in the field, walled kitchen garden, cottage garden, allotment and suburban gardens. As part of this system, vegetables and much fruit was grown in rows, which ran north to south across the plot.

Crop Rotation – How does it work again?

Major concerns when growing the same family of vegetables year after year in the same patch of soil is that this monoculture system will cause: –

The build-up of disease specific to that family of vegetables. For example, club root in brassicas.
A less fertile soil, as even with manuring / fertilising annually, the same nutrients will be taken out, leaving the chemical constituency of the soil unbalanced. This in turn can lead to disease.

It may feel complicated to get the system of crop rotation right. But so long as you know: –

What type of soil you have
Your garden or allotment’s micro-climate
Which vegetables – and fruit – fit into which family groups

You have the basis to succeed.

A 3 or 4-course rotation is the most usual to have as it is fairly simple. You can of course sub-divide your family groups and make a 6 or 8 course rotation plan.

Remember, including an extra bed for perennial vegetables is part of your vegetable garden plan, but not part of your rotation. But it is critical to make a plan of the four or more areas you are growing in, and to keep up that record over the years.

It may help you to imagine crop rotation providing a mixed diet for your garden, just as the fruit and vegetables you grow provide a mixed diet for you.

Crop Rotation – Planning

Now without wishing to complicate matters, there are two ways of approaching the grouping of your crops. You could group them according to their family. Or you could group them according to their cultivation needs. The two things aren’t always the same.
Easiest to explain with an example for each.

We also have free printables for you to download to help with your planning for 3 course rotation and 4 course rotation

3-course rotation grouped by vegetable family

	Bed 1	Bed 2	Bed 3
Year 1	Brassicas	Roots	Legumes
Year 2	Roots	Legumes	Brassicas
Year 3	Legumes	Brassicas	Roots

Example plants for each group: –

Brassicas

Cabbage
Brussels sprouts
Broccoli

Roots

Beetroots
Carrots
Parsnips
Potatoes (which are a tuber)

Legumes

Peas
Runner beans
Broad beans
But also leeks, onions and tomatoes – which are not actually legumes

A 4-course rotation could have the onion family or potatoes in a separate bed
And we haven’t decided where to put the courgettes…

3-course rotation grouped by vegetable cultivation needs

Using the table as above, and using the same title for each of the groups, we get this as an example: –

Brassicas

Cabbage
Brussels sprouts
Broccoli
Turnip
Chinese cabbage
Kale
Kohl rabi

Root vegetables

Beetroot
Carrots
Parsnips
Potatoes
Swiss chard
Leeks
Onion

Legumes and ‘fruit’ vegetables

Peas
Beans – Runner, Broad, etc
Tomatoes
Aubergines
Courgette
Cucumber
Pumpkin

Using the similar cultivation method can be easier to manage in a smaller area. It works on the basis that, for example, whilst potatoes and tomatoes are the same family, tomatoes need less nitrogen and more potassium. Potatoes are also a good crop for breaking up new ground; tomatoes are not.

What else do you need to know?

Now hopefully this has clarified a few of your queries on crop rotation. I’ve tried to keep it brief, but getting to grips with it does take planning. And I know that keeping records is a sticking point for many gardeners. If you feel a couple of gardening lessons would help, do please get in touch.

Certainly, crop rotation can be used with any of the following cultivation methods: –

Growing in rows
Raised beds
Square foot gardening
Deep beds
Lasagne gardening
No-dig gardening

Have a read of Growing Methods for Gardeners for explanation of these.

If the thought of crop rotation and planning and record keeping feels far too organised for you; there are other methods of cultivation. Most of these I’ve touched on in other blogs and will be explaining in more detail in their own articles.

You may have noticed that although I’ve mentioned fruit that we treat as vegetables, for example, pumpkins, I haven’t discussed putting fruit such as strawberries into the rotation. That’s largely because strawberries are a perennial fruit so stay in one for at least 5 years. (but more on perennial fruit in another blog)

and finally

I leave you with two important thoughts –
grow what you would like to eat
if space or time is tight, then grow interesting fruit and vegetables that are best eaten fresh and/ or those that cost a lot

For further gardening advice and inspiration, ideas for edible gardens and more, check out Plews Potting Shed blogs, including the selection below and our monthly Tipsheet . You could come and find us on Instagram – @plewsgd Pinterest and Facebook too.

And on that note, you can have a peek at my new garden in the (new) Instagram account @spitfiresandslowworms

If you’d like some personal help, we offer a mix of practical sessions and theory in our bespoke Gardening Lessons and Courses. There’s a blog link below plus a pdf download with more info