To Rotate or Not to Rotate.

Hello All.

I hope you're keeping safe wherever you are. Today there are some new restrictions for England. Over the weekend some people were taking the chance to have a last party and this upsets meand make we feel anxious. I hope that Wales stops visitors coming from these high risk area. I also hope people follow the rules and things start to improve soon for everybody.

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The posts here on my blog are not generally that thought provoking and I just tend to ramble on wondering if anybody finds them interesting enough to read. However there is a little more to my post today. It was sparked by me clearing the sweetcorm from the bed in front of the poly house/gazebo, but before that I need to talk about how we sometimes listen to other people's advice a little too much and don't always experiment when we are sowing and growing. It has taken me a long time to, sometimes, throw the rule book out of the window and just go for it. Don't get me wrong, I read lots of books looking for 'advice' and am so very grateful for all the accounts and people I talk to on Twitter as I love hearing how they go about things on their little patches of paradise, but sometimes I just think what the hell and give something a go! My very good friend Tracy over at Our Smallholding Adventure inspries me as she isn't afraid to give stuff a go!

Back to the sweetcorn.My plants have grown very well there this year and not too bad two years ago. I was thinking that its the best place to grow it above anywhere else in the garden so I started thinking about crop rotation. In the garden, as a rule, I don't plant things in the same place in consecutive years, and never potatoes, but I certainly don't leave it four years between crops; I read somewhere that if you grow in raised beds you don't really need to practise crop rotation.

So I went on a bit of a research run; didn't fall down a total rabit hole but got advice from a couple of people incuding Hugh over at @engcountrylife on Twitter as well as well as chatting to Kev of @Englishomestead also on Twitter. Generally people said that they are thristy plants and if you are going to grow them in consecutive years to add some good organic matter before planting.

Then I decided to look at some videos after somebody tagged Charles Dowding in a reply to my tweet. He replied, loved that, saying it should be fine to grow again. I checked his You Tube channel about crop rotation and that of Huw Thomas as well. Because Charles and Huw both practice no dig in their gardens, which I pretty much do, in a nut shell the act of not disturbing the soil due to not digging helps to keep the soil structure in a healthy state therefore negating the 'dig' principle.

Charles said he had has some good results when keeping plants in the same spot but other times the harvests were not so bountiful year on year; you can see what he says about it in more detail here. 

Over at Huw Richards' You Tube channel here he talks about why crop rotation is a waste of time. He points out that with frames for bean growing no rotation means no moving of the frame to a different part of the garden or allotment. 

So, I do hope you have enjoyed my ramblings. I'm definitely going to plant my sweetcorn in the same spot next year, I'll look at my planting plans and get ready to open the window and get ready to throw out that rule book a bit more, just to see what might happen!

Bye for now,

take care and stay safe,

Lou.xx