Hey guys, it's Brijette with San Diego Seed Company and today I want to talk about garden
planning and crop rotation. It's so important in a garden setting that you rotate your crops
and you do a little bit of garden planning. So, before I get into those details make sure you
hit the subscribe button, you hit the notification bell, so that you get notified anytime we put out
really rad content so that you can check it out. So we're here in my garden and you can see I've
got tons of different stuff planted; I've got sweet peas, I've got kale, I've got broccoli,
I've got flowers that I've squished in between, I've got lettuce, I've got poppies,
I mean the list goes on and on. How did I decide what to plant? Well there's a couple
different things you want to think about. First of all, you want to think about garden planning.
Now, if you plant a crop next to another crop that doesn't do really well,
well then your garden's not going to be super happy and so you want to plan it out correctly.
So, one of the considerations to have is to make sure that you don't plant anything that will shade
another crop. A good example here is, I've got these really tall purple sprouting broccolis,
now I planted these really tall purple sprouting broccolis so that they wouldn't shade my lettuces
that are over here. Why? Because, if they shade them too much they're not going to grow really
well, and then I'm going to have a lot of pest issues and things like that. So, knowing what
crops are going to get taller and shade your other crops is really important to your garden planning.
Now, another thing to think about is some plants just do really well together and some don't.
A good example is, you probably don't want to grow a watermelon in your tomato patch. You can't even
get to your tomatoes you can't walk. Like here, I put things almost a little too close, I can
barely get through here and pick my beautiful calendula that we use to make calendula oil.
It's almost too close together, so I almost cut it a little close there. Another thing to think about
when you're planning your garden is, if you're not on irrigation you want to put plants that
like the same wetness together. Meaning, let's say you have some extra succulents and you want
to stick those in the garden, I wouldn't stick them near any of your vegetable crops because
those need a lot more moisture than your succulents do and you're likely to drown one
or the other one might be too dry. You can't keep them both happy, so that's an important thing.
Now, let's talk about crop rotation. So, it's a really popular subject, obviously,
because it's really important. You want to rotate your crops so that you don't have an
accumulation of really bad pests and also so that you don't continue to deplete the
same nutrients from your soil year, after year, after year. Now, if you're in a garden setting
chances are you don't have a huge amount of space. We're very fortunate that we do, but even still,
having enough room to rotate my crops year after year is really difficult. So, I just want to
point out some of the most important things that you should think of when you're thinking about
rotating your crops. One, it's a good idea to switch up where you plant a particular crop.
Not just so that you don't take the same nutrients out of the soil every single year,
but also, you'll notice that some plants do really well in one part of the garden and they don't in
another. And if you don't switch where you plant them you'll never find out that information. So,
trial and error is really, really important in the garden. The other thing to think about when you're
doing crop rotation is making sure that you don't plant the same crop variety over and over, and
over, and over. Because like, for example, these are purple sprouting broccolis, they get huge
and they take a lot of nutrients from the ground. If I plant these again, and again, and again in
the same area it will deplete the same nutrients. So, I will actually move these to the other side
of the crop of the property and then bring them back here. I kind of switch back and forth.
The only way you can do that is if you make sure you keep a really good garden log or garden
journal so you know what to plant when. There are some pests that really like a particular crop,
and if you plant that same crop year after year, after year the same spot you're likely to have an
accumulation of that particular pest. Especially if you're growing in raised beds or pots.
So, by switching out what you grow every year, you kind of
throw those pests for a loop a little bit so they're not getting used to being in the same
area and feeding off of the same plant. Now, I know a lot of what I'm talking about might sound
really overwhelming and it is. And that's because crop rotation really is meant for the
commercial grower, for the big farmer. Think about a farmer that's growing a thousand acres of corn.
If he grows a thousand acres of corn in the same area year after year, after year, after year
he's likely going to degrade the soil and also cause a lot of other issues
in the environment. So, crop rotation is more important for commercial farmers, when they're
growing huge amounts of of the same crop in an area. Like, thousands and thousands of corn,
of acres of corn can deplete the natural resources very quickly. In a small garden setting it's not
as concerning. Now, the one thing I really want to point out, that is so important in a garden,
is diversity. At the end of every single row we have tons of flowers,
and we do that because it brings beneficial insects to the garden,
and it makes a beautiful garden setting, and it also helps us grow really, beautiful
crops. You'll see, we have rows that we have interplanted where we have diverse crops. Now,
if you're a beginning gardener, just keep in mind, every year you're going to learn something. So,
keep that garden journal close, that diary close, write down everything that you learned year after
year so that you can put it into action the next year. So, again guys, have a great growing season
and make sure if you like this content and you want to learn more from us hit the subscribe
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