crop rotation and vegetable families

[tjg911]

i decided to divide my garden into 4 quarters planting vegetables of the same family in the same quarter thereby getting a 4 year crop rotation. this should make my gardening much easier than the current method of trying to make a 4 year rotation when planting anything anywhere!

while i know that broccoli and cabbage are in the same family and tomatoes and potatoes are in the same family, i'm not sure about some others.


so here are my questions -

1. i think in the scientific name the 1st word is the family, is that correct?

2. aren't peppers in the same family as tomatoes and potatoes? peppers have a different 1st name than tomatoes and potatoes.

3. aren't cukes curcurbits like summer and winter squash? again the 1st name is different for cukes vs squashes.

4. peas (pisum sativum) and pole beans (phaseolus vulgaris) are not the same family? i'd have thought that they were.

5. peas (pisum sativum), cuke (cucumis sativus) and radish (raphanus sativas) all have similiar 2nd names but i assume they are not related?



thanks,

tom

[salix]

Tom, the first name is actually the genus. The second name is the species, usually a descriptive word (colour, appearance, growth habit, location found, discovered by, etc.). The cultivar (CULTIvated VARiety), eg. "Cherry Belle" radish, is what we call specific varieties of our garden plants. To determine which of your veggies belongs with which, I think you would have to go back to the Family or Subfamily. The Brassicas are a rather widely distributed clan, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, kohl rabi, Brussels sprouts, rutabaga, turnips. I like to keep them together because they seem to fall prey to the same insect pests and it's easier to cover them all with Reemay for protection when they're close together.

[feldon30]

The most desirable garden items -- Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant, and Potatoes -- are all in the same family. Kind makes crop rotation impossible for me.

[carolyn137]

Tom, the reason that most folks rotate crops is to cut down on build up of disease with those veggies/fruits that share the same diseases.

But in my experience the only ones that do that on a somewhat consistent basis are the Solanums ; tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant along with the Capsicums ( peppers).

Is your planned rotation for the same reason, that is, for infectious disease concerns?

For instance, I can have problems with cukes and disease and while there are a few other Cucurbits that are technically susceptible to the same diseases, such as summer squash, I almost never see the summer squash or other Cucurbits go down with those diseases.

Some folks rotate crops b'c they feel that certain crops take a lot out of the soil but that's easily approached by adding amendments and quite frankly I've never seen that. Many folks think that tomatoes, for instance, are "heavy feeders", but in all the years I've been growing tomatoes I've never seen that either.

So I think it's important to determine just why you want to divide your garden into sections in terms of crop rotation.

[TZ-OH6]

Actually, the first name is the genus and the second name is the "specific epithet", which is an adjective describing the noun-genus, and thus can never stand alone. Its like tennis-ball or red ball... Ball is the genus and tennis (or red) describes what type of ball it is. So the species is the two word combination. The noun-adjective relationship is also why the generic term is always capitalized and the specific epithet is never capitalized.

[feldon30]

So what do you call the category that includes Tomatoes, Peppers, and Potatoes?

I want a real answer, or I'm gonna back Carolyn up on calling them Solanums.

Hint: Classification experts on this haven't agreed upon a name.

[TZ-OH6]

AFAIK They are all in the Familiy Solanaceae. So the three would be grouped as "solanacids" with just potatoes and tomatoes being in the Genus Solanum. To be grammaticaly correct you would write "species of Solanum" w/ cap, or "solanums or solanum species" lower case. Fun with Latin-Yay!

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Tom, the reason that most folks rotate crops is to cut down on build up of disease with those veggies/fruits that share the same diseases.

Is your planned rotation for the same reason, that is, for infectious disease concerns?

Some folks rotate crops b'c they feel that certain crops take a lot out of the soil but that's easily approached by adding amendments and quite frankly I've never seen that.

So I think it's important to determine just why you want to divide your garden into sections in terms of crop rotation.

well those 2 reasons are why i always practiced crop rotation in both gardens. my prior house it was 600 sq ft and this house it is 1200 sq ft. it is hard to rotate in such a small area when i grow 20+ different vegetables. i am organic and would not use any chemicals for disease, insect control or soil amendments.

i read years ago in organic gardening that you needed to rotate to prevent soil diseases from building up and depletion of nutrients as different vegetables require different nutrients. growing the same vegetables in the same location each year certainly seems to deplete the nutrients that vegetable plant requires.

i always add my compost to the spot that i plant vegetables. in the fall i add some leaves prior to rototilling, i live out in a rural area far enough away from populous areas so cleanup businesses don't want to drive out here to dump leaves. locally people rake them into the woods so it is hard to get leaves here. i have some trees but they drop leaves in areas that are impossible to collect. i add cow manure about every 4-5 years. when gardens alive has a coupon for $25 off any order i'll buy tomatoes alive and sluggo so other than the tomatoes alive, leaves and manure that is all i add to the garden. trust me, i grow healthy and vigorous plants so i do not have a problem in that respect and never have.

so my concern was strictly soil disease and nutrient depletion. i would be thrilled to hear i can plant the same vegetables in the same place each year without concern. i would still move plants around from year to year but i would not be strict about never planting the same plant or family in the same place for 3-4 years. for 10 years here i have been very strict and it really makes it difficult.

tom

[carolyn137]

so my concern was strictly soil disease and nutrient depletion. i would be thrilled to hear i can plant the same vegetables in the same place each year without concern. i would still move plants around from year to year but i would not be strict about never planting the same plant or family in the same place for 3-4 years. for 10 years here i have been very strict and it really makes it difficult.

*****

IN terms of soil disease I'm not saying that you can go forever without disease buildup, and here I'm thinking primarily of the tomatoes. But in your area what soilborne tomato diseases do you have? YOu aren't that far from me and I have none to worry about.

The tomato foliage diseases are a different matter entirely and if you mulch that helps with splashback reinfection the following year and you can also turn over the soil in that area, not just rototill, to bury the foliage disases spores and bacteria.

But lets take radishes as another example. Flea Beetles love them as they do turnips and eggplant and sometimes even tomatoes. So keeping separate areas for genetically related genera/species doesn't work in this instance.

And another example is leaf miners. They love beets and chard foliage but are also known to invade tomato foliage.

So as you can see, I have a different focus than you do when it comes to planting genetically related crops b'c especially with the insect diseases there are no boundries.

I can see planting the Solanums; tomatoes, eggplant and potatoes in one area b'c they do share so many diseases, a few of which are also shared by peppers which are in the family Solanaceae but are in the genus Capsicum, for the most part.

And as I said above, cukes and melons get wilt diseases but they don't seem to bother my squash, which are also Cucurbits .

Am I helping or hindering?

And Feldon, the issue of nomenclature is pretty much settled in terms of changing the genus name from Lycopersicon to Solanum for tomatoes. I can put up some links if you want me to.

[tjg911]

Thanks Carolyn, I think you helped not hindered.


I don't have any tomato soil borne diseases. My biggest issue with tomatoes is foliage diseases and I do mulch with straw. Typically that does help a lot but this past summer it was constantly wet and humid so disease was off the chart, never saw it so bad.


I see the issues you present with turnips/beet/eggplant. I only grow radishes in the garden and did not even do that this past year, stopped growing turnips a few years ago and eggplants have been grown in 5 gallon pails 75'-100' from the garden so flea beetles are not a problem. Also with chard and beets, I see the combining together makes a smorgishborg (sp?) but I have not grown beets for a few years tho i'd like to next year and my chard was not effected when I did grow beets.


No simple answers. Seems I read years ago that crop rotation in a small garden is not all that effect against insects as the distances are small.


So I have dropped eggplant and potatoes, the latter I like but are just too much work and space for the return, I really have pared back on what I grow as I get so much I can't eat it and that's just silly. I think I have separated the related crops well with this 4 quarter method so I'll just stick the few items I was uncertain about in a quarter where there is room for them and not worry.


Thanks,


Tom

[mayax68]

Is it OK to plant cukes in the same garden with tomatoes? Will it kill my tomatoes?

[feldon30]

Why in the world would cukes "kill" tomatoes?

They are not in the same family, which in the context of this thread means they don't have the same disease profile.

You can plant cukes and tomatoes in the same bed, just consider amount of sunlight, angle of the sun, etc. Cukes are less cold tolerant than tomatoes, so need to be planted later, yet tomatoes can grow tall faster than cukes, so if they are side-by-side, the tomatoes may shade the cukes. So it's strictly a geometry problem.

[mayax68]

That is a great news. The reason I asked is because when I first started gardening my father-in-law told me that when he used to keep a garden back in USSR, they never planted cucumbers and tomatoes in the same area since it was thought that cucumber leaf viruses are spreadable to tomato leaves and will result in tomato plants dying. He said that it was one of the fundamental rules back then, so I just followed . Up until now I tried planting cucumbers in pots with not a great luck. They never showed their true potential. It is nice to know that I can plant them together since I only have 1 garden area.

[zeroma]

Don't you just love it when one of the old garden myths gets BUSTED!

People used to think tomatoes were poison as well. I love this group for this kind of information.