Just when I had come to terms with the idea that I would be going another year as a non-participant in the annual gardening adventure, I got a chance to spend this past weekend helping my friend plan out his enormous vegetable garden.

We decided to try out a little crop rotation system that works to preserve soil quality from year to year and aid in the health of the vegetables as they grow. The idea is to plant like-minded plants, or those that have a similar effect on the soil together, then rotate these groups from year to year in an effort to preserve and restore nitrogen as necessary. The system we plan to follow works with four groups:

Plot 1:  Vegetables that leach a low amount of nitrogen from the soil like peas and beans.
Plot 2: Vegetables that take a medium amount of nitrogen from the soil like peppers, tomatoes and eggplant.
Plot 3: Vegetables that leach a high amount of nitrogen from the soil like leafy above ground growers such as lettuce, spinach, swis chard, kale, and cucumbers.
Plot 4: Soil builders such as carrots, turnips, beets, onions, radishes and corn.

When the season is over, the leftover plant matter from each plot is mulched in, then the vegetables from each plot are planted in the next plot down the line, so that the soil builders follow those that leach a high amount of nitrogen. We worked it out so that each plot is broken into 3′ strips for easy maintenance and access to the vegetables.

This “rotation” principle is utilized all at once with corn, beans and squash (a.k.a “The 3 Sisters”). In this case, the corn provides a place for the beans to climb and the two of them work to rejuvenate the nitrogen supply in the soil that the squash removes.

There’s more information about which vegetables to plant together out there, and it seems to vary a bit from source to source. We’ll try it this way and see how it goes…then maybe give something else a go down the road. If you have any additional tips, please do share!