00:00Thank you for listening.
00:34Rotation of vegetables, which means growing them in a different place from one year to
00:40the next.
00:41It's commonly prescribed as being that you should leave a three-year interval between
00:48growing plants of same family, like say brassicas or alliums, before you grow them again.
00:55And so that's then called a four-year rotation.
00:59Actually comes from 18th century farming.
01:03I'm not convinced how applicable it is to modern gardening, but I don't really know for sure.
01:09And so that's why I'm running a little trial here, just comparing to see where, for example,
01:16this is the fifth year in a row of growing cabbages in the same place.
01:22It's a little, I'm a little bit vague on the precise number just because at the very start
01:27of this trial, I didn't actually have beds quite like this, but it's more or less actually
01:31the sixth year in the same place.
01:33But to be more correct, it's the fifth year in beds like this.
01:37And we made a video about this in 2016, three years ago.
01:42And if you're interested to compare, do have a look at that one.
01:45This is going forwards a bit.
01:47And so what has actually happened here, I say, in this cabbage bed is each year we grow
01:53broad beans in the winter, through the winter, sown November, planted December, harvested 13th
01:59of June, and that's when these were planted.
02:01So we do a final harvest of the broad beans, 13th of June, in this case, 2019.
02:07Clear the plants.
02:08We cut them off at the roots and plant cabbages, which were sown a month before that.
02:13This is phil de kraut.
02:15There's a red cabbage there and a different white one.
02:18And basically, we've been doing that sequence, broad beans, cabbage, broad beans, cabbage,
02:22for five years in this strip.
02:26And draw your own conclusion, really, but for me, I'm not yet seeing any deterioration
02:32of quality.
02:33If you had club root, if you're unlucky enough to have club root, and often British allotments
02:38have that in the soil, then you do need to rotate cabbage.
02:43Otherwise, maybe not so much.
02:45I'm not saying it's good not to rotate, but I'm just like to show this as an example.
02:51For those of you who maybe like to eat lots of cabbage, you know, you don't want to wait
02:54four years between planting each lot of brassica or cabbage, whatever.
02:59So this is a positive indication here.
03:01And a bit the same for the leeks, where this line, we do potatoes as first crop.
03:08So they go in the ground, in this case, this year, it was the 12th of April.
03:13And they were harvested on the 11th of July.
03:16That was Charlotte potatoes.
03:17So that's been happening every year.
03:20And this year, the fifth year in a row of potatoes, we got 48 kilos, was actually the highest total
03:27of the five years so far.
03:30Which mainly reflects that we have very good weather this spring for potatoes.
03:33And we gave them one watering just before harvest that swelled the tubers a bit.
03:37But basically, a really nice harvest.
03:40And this is now the fifth year in the row of leeks following.
03:42So it's potatoes leeks, potatoes leeks, fifth year in a row there.
03:47A little bit of rust on the leaves, but actually no more than in other parts of the garden where
03:52I'm growing the same leeks, but in different places, not rotating others.
03:56So I've got that comparison to make as well.
03:58These are still a little bit small, mainly because they went in quite late.
04:02They were sown on the 5th of April, planted here 11th of July.
04:07And, you know, they've got a bit of time still to grow.
04:10The ground is fairly moist, leaks like a lot of water, so we will keep these water.
04:16The potatoes left them pretty dry.
04:19But yeah, so far so good, I would say, for year five.
04:22And if we move over here, there's two more lines, I can show you a similar story.
04:29So these two lines, this one was squash until just a few days ago.
04:35Currie winter squash, so that's lovely dark red ones that make a hard skin that you can
04:41store for the winter.
04:43And basically, they were ripe and the leaves had died off.
04:46So we harvested 20 kilos of squash.
04:50And that was the sixth year in a row of squash in this same place.
04:57Not bad, 20 kilos.
04:59We have had as much as 55, actually, from this area.
05:03So just six plants.
05:05So this year's harvest was down.
05:07The pattern of weather didn't suit their timing of growth quite so well.
05:11But I have been wondering, actually, a little bit.
05:13I will do it for one more year.
05:15I'm beginning to question that growing squash in the same place for that many years.
05:19But we'll see.
05:20I mustn't jump to a conclusion.
05:22Because this strip next to me, when we were here years ago, and it was a year when we'd
05:30had a dry summer.
05:31And it was really for that reason more than anything, I think.
05:33The beans weren't looking so brilliant.
05:35And I was thinking, you know, I wasn't sure what was causing it.
05:38But with the benefit of hindsight, it was definitely the dry weather.
05:41And we hadn't watered much.
05:42Whereas this year, we have watered a bit more, actually.
05:47And this is the seventh year in a row of growing climbing beans, borlottis, and runner beans for
05:56seed in the same place.
05:58Seven years in a row, these beans have been here every summer, planted May, harvested through
06:04September, October.
06:06And this year, year seven, I haven't got the harvest totals yet.
06:10But the bean plants, to me, actually look pretty much as healthy as I've ever seen them.
06:15They look fantastic.
06:16All of this ground, we are treating in the same way compost-wise.
06:21After the autumn harvest, we spread compost on the surface.
06:25It's all no dig.
06:26Actually, with one exception, because there's a little trial strip there.
06:28But basically, it's no dig with all the organic matter on top and compost.
06:34No other feeds or fertilizers.
06:36So it's just no dig with compost and whether that plays a part in the health of these plants
06:43that could be, you know, if you were digging disturbing ground, for me, that's a damaging
06:49thing to do.
06:51And I think it's one reason why my gardens generally, the plants are very healthy.
06:57People often comment on that.
06:58I get a lot of lovely comments like on Instagram, you know, what other vegetables that just look
07:03so blooming and glossy and shiny and full of color.
07:06So this trial into no rotation, you know, if you did it with digging, it might give a slightly
07:11different result and be not so good, I think.
07:14But if you really, what rotation is about is maintaining soil health and vitality reflected
07:21in plant growth and vitality.
07:24And in the case of classical rotation theory, it's worrying about whether you get a buildup
07:30of pests and disease from using the same bit of soil every year for the same plant.
07:35And yeah, I would just say from what I'm seeing so far, seven years, six years, five years,
07:42there's a limit to how far that you need to worry about that.
07:45It's not all nonsense.
07:47But on the other hand, if you have a piece of ground and you're not growing many crops
07:51and you can't fit in a full year rotation, I would say, don't worry about it too much.
07:56My ideal would be to leave one year between plants of the same family.
08:00I think that's safety first, if you like.
08:03But even if you couldn't do even that, well, maybe try continuous coffee.
08:17With that, I think is good enough.
08:19Oh.
08:21Oh.
08:21Oh.
08:22Oh.
08:22Oh.
08:23Oh.
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