Crop Rotation on Your Allotment Plot

Crop rotation is a beneficial technique for maintaining your soil’s fertility and nutrient level, while allowing you to grow a wide variety of vegetables and fruits in a smaller area. 

Rotating vegetables within the same plot of land is an ancient practice involving increased dependence on synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, which made many growers hesitant. However, as more growers and consumers are turning to organic farming techniques, agricultural crop rotation is becoming increasingly popular.

Are you looking to learn more about soil rotation in your kitchen garden or allotment? Read our guide on crop rotation for vegetable growing. 

Benefits of Allotment Crop Rotation

Crop rotation works best with annual vegetables and not perennial crops such as asparagus, artichokes and rhubarb. 

Rotating your crops each season provides a wealth of benefits to your plot. Here are the top benefits of garden vegetable rotation:

1. The soil fertility is maintained, as different crops have different requirements. Rotating your crops will allow the soil to restore any deficiencies, resulting in a high-quality crop the next time (without needing chemical fertilisers).
2. Crops like potatoes have dense foliage, which helps reduce weed growth.
3. Pests and diseases don’t attack all plants similarly, so when you undertake allotment crop rotation, you make it difficult for these pests to thrive as their host plants are no longer present. In this way, pests and diseases are less likely to destroy your crop yield. 
4. Soil rotation is a sustainable practice, as it reduces the use of synthetic fertilisers and herbicides, a major contributor to soil and water pollution. Consuming these crops can adversely affect the health of animals and humans alike. 

Sometimes more action is required to maintain soil health, such as adding compost and mulch, depending on a range of factors such as moisture, soil type and what you plan to grow next.

By rotating your crops, you help to provide a natural balance.

How To Execute Crop Rotation

Crop rotation can be implemented by dividing your plot into sections. The sizes will depend on how much you want to grow of any one type of crop.

When it's time to plant out, you will want to plant in sections as per the plant variety or family they belong to, which have the same growing requirements.

Divide the crops you want to grow into the different families they belong to: Root vegetables, Brassicas, Legumes, Potatoes and Allium family.

Some popular plants from each of the above-mentioned categories which benefit from crop rotation are:

• Brassicas: Brussels sprouts, cabbage, turnip, kale, swede

• Legumes: Peas and a variety of beans

• Alliums: Onion, leeks, garlic, shallots

• Nightshade: Peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant

• Roots: Beetroot, parsnips, carrot

You can refer to our Companion Planting page to find out what works well together and which to keep apart.

Some plants that don’t need agricultural crop rotation include peas, sweetcorn, squash, courgettes, salads and leafy greens. 

Plant one group of plants in a section of the allotment. After the harvest of that section, prepare it for the next group of crops. You will want to move each plant family to an alternative section, as it will have depleted the existing one of its nutrients required for that crop and may have attracted pests and diseases associated with that crop, which, of course, will need treating.

A crop family should return to the first section after at least 3 or 4 years, allowing the soil to regain the necessary nutrients. 

A four year crop rotation will help give the soil a chance to recover. Here we will give you a guide on a traditional three and four year crop rotation to help you. In summary, you will move each section one forward each time and then start at the beginning again.

Rotation Planting Chart

We’ve created an easy-to-follow three-year rotation planting chart:

Here is a four year veg rotation chart that can be followed:

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