← The vegetable garden H10-04 · Module 4 of 7 · Pages: 20 · Worksheets: 6

Crop rotation and companion planting

How to move vegetables round the beds from year to year and which plants to grow together, with a four-year rotation plan

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Crop rotation and companion planting

In short

  • A plant of the same family does not go back in the same spot for at least 3, better 4 years.
  • Divide the garden into 4 plots: fruiting crops, legumes, brassicas and leafy crops, roots and onions.
  • The plots move on by one each year: hungry crops follow legumes or get compost.
  • Potatoes and tomatoes are the same family, and so are cabbage, radish and mustard.
  • Companion plants help, but they don't replace rotation. Flowers that attract beneficial insects do the most good.

What's inside

Chapters

  1. Why rotate
  2. Vegetable families
  3. Hungry and less hungry crops
  4. The four-plot plan
  5. Rotation when the garden isn't tidy
  6. Green manures and catch crops
  7. Companion planting: what is proven
  8. A mixed bed in practice
  9. Flowers and beneficial insects
  10. Common mistakes
  11. Printable checklist

Worksheets

  • Four-year rotation plan
  • Rotation and fertility calendar
  • Compost and green manure calculator
  • Bed history
  • Companion chart
  • Observation log

Fields and checkboxes can be filled in with Adobe Acrobat Reader (desktop and mobile), and the calculator adds up by itself. Filling in may not work in some browsers. A print version comes with the screen PDF.

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