I've been playing with different methods of garden rotation over the last few years.  The easy way to do this is to plant in zones --- all of the crucifers go in zone A in 2013, in zone B in 2014, in zone C in 2015, and then back to zone A in 2016.  My long-term plan at the moment is to rotate tomatoes using this method, moving them through the sunniest, sprinkler-free spots: the forest garden, the back garden, and the area around the gully.

But for the rest of the garden, I prefer to keep things mixed up, with each bed being different from its neighbors.  That keeps the bugs confused and diseases isolated, and also helps me hedge my bets for different kinds of weather.  However, since I also take into account corn pollination, winter sun, summer shade, ease of quick-hoop erection, water-loggedness (I know that's not a word....), and depth of soil, along with planting history, the annual rotation takes quite a while to figure out.

My current method uses a spreadsheet like the one shown above.  I've considered hiring someone to turn my method into an app, but since I've never used a smart phone, I doubt that'll happen anytime soon.  Instead, I just manually hunt through until I find a bed that hasn't been planted with the family I'm trying to find room for within the last three years, then bold that line to remind myself it's been taken.

I generally plan out as much of the spring garden as I can until I get stuck, then run a second round of rotation planning later in the year.  This year, it seems like I planted too much rye to allow me to set out my early May beds, but these things usually work out due to failed early plantings, so I'm not worried.

The final step is to pick through my seed box and figure out what I need to order.  This year, I'm running a germination test on old peas (which are clearly fine), parsley, and peppers; am definitely ordering lettuce, basil, onions, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, and corn; and have old-but-fine or saved seeds for everything else.

The photo at the top of this post is a reflected sunrise --- color in the west instead of the east on a cloudy morning.  I'm not quite sure why that seemed relevant to garden planning, but it did.  Insert some poetic line here about looking back and looking ahead all at once.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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