Owen Pidgeon shares his crop rotation plan for the best vegetable, herb gardens

One of the goals of any gardener is to maintain and build up the health of their soil, if possible by natural means. As the various families of plants have differing nutrient requirements, their impact on the soil will also vary.

Gardeners, and even large-scale broadacre farmers, can rely on clover, broad beans, field peas and other nitrogen producing plants to restore soil health. So it is very useful to have some knowledge about the requirements of plant groups so that you can select appropriate follow on crops every time.

To avoid reducing the quality of any section of the garden, and to avoid the build-up of damaging pathogens for any plant, it is essential to undertake systematic crop rotation. To sow the same crop in the same place, year after year, will see the soil drained of some specific trace elements and often will also result in major disease problems.

By using the natural producers of nitrogen, legumes, at a suitable time in the rotation cycle, soil fertility will be maintained naturally. Legumes should be playing an important part in the process of maintaining and building your living, healthy soil. Complementing these approaches is the key addition of well matured compost to greatly improve the tilth and overall quality of the soil.

Crop rotation is the best long term, natural approach to controlling soil borne pests and diseases. Plants from the same family are often affected by the same pests and diseases and this will have a major impact on yields. By rotating your garden planting to completely different family groups, you will avoid the building up of soil borne diseases. If it is possible to adopt a four-year cycle between growing the same crop in the same place, the levels of carryover of pest and disease problems will be greatly enhanced.

This is particularly so if you like growing members of the solanum family: potatoes, chillies, capsicums and tomatoes in the summer months. Similarly, if you can manage to successfully grow brassicas in the autumn and winter months you do need long fallow periods for successful gardening. The rotation principle applies to each entire plant family.

Legume plants are a double benefit as they can also provide the most wonderful ingredients to the kitchen, when picked directly from the garden. By producing nitrogen to the soil and not having pest problems, they can be good contributors each season to rebuilding the health of garden beds.

Shelling peas, sugar snap peas, snow peas, beans and broad beans are just wonderful for every type of menu. They can be turned into the garden bed to add to the humus content, once the harvest is over (I would usually take a pair of secauteurs and cut the stems into 20-centimetre lengths to help with decomposition). So with the all benefits of legumes you are then left with a boosted garden bed for follow-on, heavy feeder crops.

Before you plant out heavy feeder crops, make sure the beds are well prepared. This group includes the brassica family. Brassicas need lots of nitrogen for good leaf growth, so it is best to always grow a legume crop in the garden bed before planting out any brassicas.

There is a floating group of vegetables which can be interspersed. Whenever you decide to plant out sweet corn or lettuces which are listed in the 'Others' category, remember that they will benefit from a deep, rich soil and lots of water to push them along.

Finally, there are the root crops. All the vegetables that are growing their harvest underground do not like soil that has been heavily manured in the previous season. Some are shallow rooted vegetables, such as radishes, whereas carrots will produce very long roots if the conditions are right. The varying depths of the roots of this vegetable group offers another element to crop rotation. You can alternate deep and shallow rooting vegetables over time, so that all levels of the soil structure will be enhanced. .

In addition, you have the aspect of soil acidity levels. Tomatoes and capsicums grow better in a soil that has a lower level of pH. The pH levels usually drop when compost is added to the soil, so this is a good preparation action. On the other hand, brassicas like a more alkaline soil, so lime can be added to the garden bed prior to planting out cabbages and broccoli.

Crop rotation model

The following is a four-year crop rotation plan. There is also a selection of floating vegetable families. They do not have the same pest and soil disease problems so they can fill gaps where you decide to rest another crop. Cucurbits and sweet corn need lots of space and are heavy feeders.

Year one: Solanum family
Potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums, chillies and eggplants.

Year two: Legumes
Beans, peas, snow peas and broad beans.

Year three: Brassicas
Cabbages, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, kohlrabi and kale.

Year four: Alliums and roots
Onions, chives, garlic, leeks, shallots, carrot, celery, celeriac, parsnip, parsley, and beetroot.

Floating
Cucurbits and corn: Cucumber, pumpkins, squash, zucchini, melons, sweet corn
Salads: Lettuces, rocket, Asian greens

Pork and apple burgers

For a midwinter treat, indulge yourself with a good winter recipe involving pork and apples.

2 pink lady apples
750g pork mince
2 free-range eggs
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 tsp ground sage
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
6 thick slices, mozzarella cheese
1 cup plain flour

Peel, core and then slice each apple, selecting the middle sections to produce six thick, large rings. Combine the pork mince, eggs, onion with the herbs and sauce. Form the burger mixture into 12 rounds.

Place one slice of apple on top of six of the rounds and gently push down. Add a slice of the mozzarella cheese then place another burger round on top and flatten. Roll the burgers in plain flour and then cook in a fry pan or grill for 6-7 minutes until each side is well browned.

Serve on bread rolls with salad or serve with mixed vegetables.

This week in the garden

* Complete planting out your main long keeping varieties of onion seedlings. Do not plant too deeply, spread the long roots out well and press the soil down firmly.

* If you have time to plant out a row or two of, spinach seedlings, set up a simple plastic cloche cover to provide overnight protection when heavy frosts are predicted.

* Raise a small supply of snow peas and sugar snap peas in old egg cartons, keeping them in a well protected, sunny location until the seeds germinate. When the plants are 10-12 centimetres high, sow them in a garden bed, to a depth of 5cm and set up a mesh/wire support frame.

* Consider planting out a hedgerow of red and white current bushes. They produce well in heavy soils and they can manage our winters well. With existing bushes, prune back all dead wood and reduce the length of the two year old branches, to promote new growth.

* Give citrus trees a midwinter spray of light winter oil which will act to smother leaf and scale pests.

Owen Pidgeon runs the Loriendale Organic Orchard near Hall.