I am growing three things which I’m not sure where they fit in the rotation groups: strawberry sticks and callaloo - both are in beetroot family I think so do they go with the roots? lab lab beans - clearly they are legumes but are they like French beans which apparently don’t matter, or peas which do?
You DO need to rotate alliums (white rot), solanaceae (blight and a few other things) and brassicas (club root).
You DON'T need to rotate any other crops.
It's useful to rotate legumes because they fix the nitrogen for the brassicas, rather than to prevent the legumes themselves from getting diseases. It's sometimes suggested that peas and broad beans need to be rotated, but I'm not sure why. So as far as I know @iamjowilson (and to be fair, that's not far at all) you don't NEED to rotate any of your more exotic crops.
PS Don't forget that turnips and swedes are brassicas
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I think you hit the nail on the head as why folks rotate legumes, raisingirl, given many folks grow brassicas after them in the same season. I don’t follow legumes with winter brassicas as its too hot for them when they need to go in and far too many broccoli-munching pests around, but I rotate them just because its easier that way. Carrots get rotated because I grow them with the alliums, beetroot because I grow the beets and brassica leaves together, Spinach gets rotated as it shares the Solanaceae bed. I think I would get seriously muddled if I rotated some things and not others!
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Hope you don't mind me piggybacking on this thread. I was going to start a new one but that seemed like overkill.
Does anyone know the reason for the allium-legume antipathy? ie: is it soil-based, proximity-based, unknown?
I have one large raised veg bed split into sections, but crop rotation is not easy because one end gets much more sun than the other, and only one part is low enough for me to plant beans and reach the top for picking. I'm tending to grow the same things in each spot because it's the right place as far as sun and space is concerned. So far, it's been fine. But it means that both beans and peas are either in the same bed as, or right next to, a row of chives or onions.
So far, the beans have grown well in the same bed each year (last year not so good with the drought, but as soon as it cooled down they caught up), but I only started the chives last year. I could dig them up? The onions will have to stay, but they are not in the same soil as the beans, so if it's a soil-based problem it should be OK... they're only about a foot away though, so if it's about pests or aroma or something, then that's still a problem.
I'll stop waffling now and just ask - what's the deal with alliums and legumes?
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
Allelopathy is the deal. Certain plans exhude allelochemicals that inhibit the growth of another. Its a competition thing. The classic example is the walnut tree exhuding junglone, an inhibiting chemical, from its roots and also leaves, which suppresses growth that may complete with the walnut, but affects certain plants (like Solanaceae) much more than most. It can work the other way, with plants decomposing and leaching allelopathoc compounds that give others a boost. This is the basis of ‘good companions’ and ‘bad companions’ in terms of what grows best with what etc. I don’t know the particular inhibiting chemical that onions exhude but they do produce sulphur, maybe thats bad for beans, maybe its a myth... be interested if anyone knows!
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Aha, that's great, thanks. So the beans that are very close to the onions but in a different bed (separated quite deep into the ground) should be fine. The peas are going to have to be in the same bed as the chives, but I've managed to fit them at the other end rather than right next door. One end of the beans is rather closer but that'll have to do. I'll monitor how they do this year and if it's not good I'll either dig up the chives or stop growing peas.
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I am growing three things which I’m not sure where they fit in the rotation groups:
strawberry sticks and callaloo - both are in beetroot family I think so do they go with the roots?
lab lab beans - clearly they are legumes but are they like French beans which apparently don’t matter, or peas which do?
You DON'T need to rotate any other crops.
It's useful to rotate legumes because they fix the nitrogen for the brassicas, rather than to prevent the legumes themselves from getting diseases. It's sometimes suggested that peas and broad beans need to be rotated, but I'm not sure why. So as far as I know @iamjowilson (and to be fair, that's not far at all) you don't NEED to rotate any of your more exotic crops.
PS Don't forget that turnips and swedes are brassicas
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Does anyone know the reason for the allium-legume antipathy? ie: is it soil-based, proximity-based, unknown?
I have one large raised veg bed split into sections, but crop rotation is not easy because one end gets much more sun than the other, and only one part is low enough for me to plant beans and reach the top for picking. I'm tending to grow the same things in each spot because it's the right place as far as sun and space is concerned. So far, it's been fine. But it means that both beans and peas are either in the same bed as, or right next to, a row of chives or onions.
So far, the beans have grown well in the same bed each year (last year not so good with the drought, but as soon as it cooled down they caught up), but I only started the chives last year. I could dig them up? The onions will have to stay, but they are not in the same soil as the beans, so if it's a soil-based problem it should be OK... they're only about a foot away though, so if it's about pests or aroma or something, then that's still a problem.
I'll stop waffling now and just ask - what's the deal with alliums and legumes?
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Thanks @Nollie.