I have many beds in part sun, limiting my choices. I practice a brassica- non brassica rotation. I also use a solanaceae-non solanaceae rotation in the tomato and potato beds, and I use a succession (not a rotation) when I heavily amend a bed (so there is lots of trash mixed in the soil), starting with squash, potato or cardoon, continuing with brassica or beta or other, and ending with lettuce or carrots when the soil is fine.

You're right that it isn't widely practiced. No crop rotation plan is. Most home gardeners don't have the garden size to allow for it except to maybe rotate rows in the bed and regularly well-amended soil doesn't require it.

Crop rotation is one of those concepts more directed at commercial growers than home gardeners IMO.

Personally I have the garden space to do it but since I actively compost and all my gardens are regularly amended with lots of it plus tilled in cover crops the most I ever do is move things over a row or two now and then.

The search here will pull up many discussions on 'crop rotation' if interested.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Crop rotation discussions

Like Dave said, I don't really have the room.

This is only the 2nd year there's been a garden in that spot anyway. I have heavy clay soil that I'm working on amending. Though it's a pain to work in, my soil seems to be very nutrient rich.

I do rotate crops mostly for the help it gives in controlling pests. So many pests lay eggs in the soil and I do not spray....This is not to say that plenty of folks don't get along without it. They do.

Anyway, my rotations are fairly simple because I garden in 9 raised beds. I do not mix "families" in the beds and rotate them all on a 3 year basis. During fall and winter, I only use 3 or 4 beds so it's really easy to keep them rotated. All the other beds are planted in a cover crop each winter.

I have the book you referred to and I read their system with interest. But I thought it was enormously more complicated than just rotating plant families.

One tip I have picked up along the way...I do not plant solaneaceaes and brassicas in the same beds in back to back years. Both are beloved by flea beetles which will proliferate in the soil when they have a steady diet. This I learned by accident and then found it confirmed in a Fine Gardening article.

I also have a raised bed system, and simply try not to grow the same thing in each raised bed that I grew last year. That's as good as it gets for me, although I also amend with compost as often as possible (i.e., when I have enough!)

Eliot Coleman's rotation makes a lot of sense, so I try to follow it whenever I can. I don't get tied up in knots if it's not possible, though. I don't grow an equal area of each crop family.

Year 1 - corn
Year 2 - potatoes
Year 3 - squash
Year 4 - root crops
Year 5 - beans
Year 6 - tomatoes
Year 7 - peas
Year 8 - cabbage family

I try my darndest not to plant the same thing in the same spot two years in a row.

I draw a map of the garden, and on a winter night I take colored magic markers, one for each crop family, and make a mark if that family has grown in that bed over the past 3 years. What ever colors are left for each bed are what I can choose from to plant that next spring. I also don't plant onion/garlic family where brassicas have grown the year before. So far it's working--my only pest control is hand picking--and it's fun to play with colors on a cold winter night.

why no alliums after brassica? Allium is certainly a disinfectant for certain diseases, and in my experience they can rotate together without problems.

I've read in several places that while Allium before brassica is good for the brassicas, that Alliums after brassicas will reduce the productivity of the Allium crop that year.

This is great information. Thanks everyone!

I plant the same crops in the same places every year, because I have found the arrangement I like.

At the end of the season, I till it a bunch with my tractor powered tiller, which moves the soil a long distance. Thus, I rotate my soil instead of my crops.