The kids have been diligently tending their garden, learning about the cold, learning the ways of crop rotation. Rotating crops helps to improve soil structure, increases a plant’s ability to absorb nutrients and aids in pest control. As we prepare to harvest and begin the new season, organic gardeners need to know what they grow, know what grows where, when and why. Quite a mouthful, isn’t it?
But we make crop rotation easy at BloominThyme and sing our way through the garden ~ beans – leaves – roots and fruits! Beans – leaves – roots and fruits!
Students (and garden teacher) love dancing through the rows, belting out this catchy tune. Not only fun, but it’s how we remember where to plant our seeds. 🙂 Harvesting broccoli gives you an available bed. Wunderbar. Broccoli is considered part of the “leaves” group, so that means we’ll follow with something from the root family. Tomatoes on their way out? Make way for some beans, kiddos, and the more the merrier! These are our black beans (pictured below).
Getting the hang of it? It’s easy. Beans, leaves, roots and fruits. That’s your crop rotation schedule. We follow it every season. Combine crop rotation with our companion planting and you’ve got the makings for a healthy, organic garden. You can also rotate heavy feeders with light feeders, deep roots with shallow, the latter especially useful for aerating the soil, increasing a plant’s ability to intake nutrients.
So easy. Don’t you just love a garden that tills itself, shoos the bugs away and increases food absorption all by its little old self?
I do. And so do the kids. Their lessons on crop rotation are here: Crop Rotation_UE and Crop Rotation_MS and for the younger ones? We simply sing. 🙂
Man I wish I was in your class! What a great way to remember what to rotate. Thank you for sharing that.