1,000,000 thank yous for this video. I have been telling this to people for 25 years, and they never believe me. I will send this video on to a bunch of people to tell them to stick their pitchforks where their compost shines. I have a 50 x 2 foot area and 14 separate 4 x 4 raised beds, and I can produce as much as some small farms. I used to do square foot gardening, and now I do even more intensive. I have cucumbers as close together as radishes, and they produce more than we can eat. We give the extra to elderly neighbors that cannot garden any more.
Thank you, Luke! Some people following my gardening blog are puzzled as to why I drive in huge harvests each year despite not sticking to the rotation "rules" (I'd quickly run out of space, that's why I didn't even start to follow the rules. I only have 450 square meters to work with). I'm tired of explaining why I don't and why my experience tells me it's not necessary. Now I can just link them to your video, haha!
I'm in my 9th decade and still do organic gardening in washer and dryer tubs. I've used the same soil and planted the same plants in the same containers for 20 years. NO problems whatsoever! I raise red wigglers (yes ~ in my house) and their "contributions", plus powdered egg shells, provide marvelous food for me with a plentiful abundance to share with those who are less blessed. Thanks for THIS, and ALL your great videos! Sure wish I could raise figs, bananas, avocados, etc where I live! (Not to mention kumquats, loquats, apricots, pomegranates, etc!)
@@victoriajankowski1197 Thanks, Victoria. I, too, love David the Good although I don't have the book as I have problems reading since botched eye surgeries. Any suggestions on Edible Weeds? Do you grow Egyptian walking onions? Yummy, E-Z to grow, prolific but non-invasive. Put some in the ground and forget about them until you want to pull one.
You're such a good communicator, Luke... like the doctor of dirt! My parents threw some Elephant Garlic into the backyard back in the Eighties, and it still happily volunteers each year.
Very informative, thank you, like you say it's not easy to rotate in my small garden, and now thanks to this video, I went feel bad planting tomatoes in the same spot as the last few years, what a relief. Thanks again, I've learnt so much from your gardening videos.
You're absolutely right and this is very well-explained. I live in Scotland and traditionally we would have really wet weather for months and months on end. It didn't matter whether I had potatoes in a well-cultivated bed, in a new bed made up on fresh ground, or 300ft away in growing bags and containers - potato crops would have blight to some degree. Last year, we had a peculiarly hot Spring - and not a trace of blight to be found on any of the potatoes, even though some surviving tubers had resprouted in the same beds I'd used in previous years. They were perfectly good - and that's when I began to have my own doubts about crop rotation for everything. In recent years, I have gone beyond remaking beds with just the compost made from kitchen scraps. Now I add lots of moss (as it grows really thick and lush by the stream and quickly breaks down into the most beautiful compost), chopped dead ferns and bracken, lots of half-decomposed leaves (oak, hazel & beech) dredged from the stream, crumbling twigs, beech mast & beech flowers. This year I have the addition of horse manure courtesy of my new neighbour's horse. For me, the addition of nutritional materials is not a once a year job. If I find something 'suitable' I can add to the soil when plants are actively growing (without swamping them of course), it's added. Variety does keep pests under control, and once you taste the difference between shop-bought spinach and home-grown you quickly learn to suffer a few slug holes or a little beetle nibbling the edges.
Debbie Henri - potato blight is AIRBORNE. I am also from Scotland, the reason we didn't suffer blight in2018 was that the humidity in the air was low due to the hot, dry weather. Please simply Google potato blight and find some reputable advice not the misleading nonsense on this channel. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
OMG I just stumbled on this video-4 years after it was posted. Thank you so much. I am new to gardening. I started last spring and failed (so much to learn). My fall garden was much better and this year was even better. I’m in zone 8A (coastal southeast NC) It’s not easy but you take so much of the anxiety away. I do enjoy fall gardening because it’s cooler and no humidity! Thank you for all you do.
Great video, immense amount of practical knowledge. The natives had it right with the three sisters corn, squash and beans grown together. Where the bean climbs the corn, the nitrogen intensive corn is fed by the nitrogen fixer bean plant and the squash grows on the ground so that weeds are blocked out and rodents dislike climbing over the squash to get the corn and the beans.
I'm from Alabama where the Boll Weevil was a big deal. You are right that farming on a large scale is different from backyard gardening. The greatest advice is to know your soil and know your plants. If I can't amend the soil in time for a planting, I let that bed rest until I can get to it. Same if there was a pest or fungal issue. Then I'll just rotate that crop to another location. Reusing soil hasn't been a big issue unless I failed to address any prior issues.
So thankful for this video! I’m a first timer and was already starting to plan for next year and it was stressing me! Now I can peace knowing I can just retry what works in the same spot!
This a huge relief! In a 30 x 40 garden with a mix of sun it drives me crazy to plan on rotations and spacing. I finally decided to do it my own way because of space limitations and time constraints. I have had zero issues. I use mainly organic fertilizers and natural materials like organic matter like leaves, compost and wood chips. Yes I do use the occasional commercial fertilizer at times but I use it sparingly. Recently as an aside we had cedar rust (fungus?) on a Honey Crisp apple tree. I used organic Serenade and a heavy mulch. WOW WOW. The tree I was going to be taken out last fall and I gave it one last year. Well this year it looks amazing. Fingers crossed. So organic methods do work.
THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO!! I've been racking my brain on how to accomodate my drip irrigation setup for crop rotation but what you said makes so much sense. This info helps a lot.
I’ve had such a hard time with cucumber beetles this year and everyone keeps telling me to stop growing squash for a couple of years. I’m hesitant not just because I love my squashes and they love my soil, but it took me 4 years of growing squash to build up a healthy population of squash bees. I used to have to manually pollinate those plants because there were no bees, and they do a way better job than me! If I starve the beetles of squashes, I’d have to starve the squash bees too and start over. I think I might just be stuck with the annoying beetles…
I totally agree with Luke. I have planted tomatoes in the same garden bed for 10 years. I've learned a lot over the years, and last summer was my best season yet. I keep the soil fresh and healthy and stuff grows. :)
Thank you for another great video. We practiced crop rotation on the family farm when I was a kid, but as a home gardener I've never done so. It simply not necessary. I just love your passion for gardening. How about an update on the 87year old tomato? I'd love to know how its going.
I totally agree. I've had years where I've rotated my garden crops and then I've planted things in the same places for several years. My garden hasn't suffered from either practice. What matters is soil amendments. Compost is absolutely the best thing ever.
You just explained what I needed to know. Million thanks to you. I have a small garden and only grow vegetables for myself and sometimes give some to my friends. And it makes so much sense!
I used the same 12' x 12' rised bed for 7 years, and I grew the same thing every year in the same spot, and I never had any issues, but one and that was Aphips. I would just go to my local farm supplies and get a deal of Ladybugs, and that fixed my problem. I did every years I needed to add some more potting mix, plus any compost I had as well, and my garden produced a whole lot of vegetables.
Exactly the problem I have had. I never really rotated my crops until about 4 years ago when I started using a gardening program that said I could not plant my tomatoes and garlic in the same spot that I had done the year before. The next few years my tomato harvest went way down and not only that, but my cucumber harvest too. This year I am planting them in the same place where they did so well for years in hope that it will make the difference. Thanks for the very helpful info.
I think many gardens only have one place that is sunny/warm enough for tomatoes (where I live they are mostly grown indoors or in greenhouses, but a south-facing wall could also work). Do you think this is the case with your garden? Do you add a lot of material between growing seasons?
Thanks for sharing. You hit the nail on the head. People who question you should look into Back to Eden Gardening and how it works. I do raised beds which can apply the same principle. Love your videos
I have a very small garden with a large raised bed and many pots while I live with my aunt and uncle but I love being able to help with food in this way and it’s such a good way to help with anxiety and stress! I’ll be moving within this year so a yard is definitely my top priority! These videos are always so helpful for me and I love watching!
I feel its nicer sometimes to just plant the seed in the ground rather than being worried about macroscale consequences and rather see how what you've done influenced your microclimate. I didn't like my arugula at all, but I got complacent, let it flower, and my god the bees going insane, and the first time ever I seed a bird even eat the seeds from it! It's so easy in gardening to get bogged down with rules, season, lighting, etc for instant success. We forget to be our child likes selves and explore our curiosities and study our failures.
You nailed it, buddy. This is why we should all have a home vegetable garden. Sustainable farmer Newman Turner grew a record crop of wheat because he had his "temporary ley" system which interspersed and rotated pastures with grain crop production, but for fruits and vegetables, the compost method is the most efficient and sustainable answer, especially with chickens.
Thank you for giving me some peace. I have tomatoes in the same bed for 5th or 6th year in a row. Last winter I added some forest soil and wood ashes. I have the best tomato plants ever. They are almost 5 feet tall, with tons of green tomatoes on them.
This was really good to learn. This year I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the crop rotation thing and am so glad that I don't really need to do it!
Thank you for bringing up the bananas! We're actually in the middle of a huge fight to not have the same exact thing happen with our current monoculture banana, too, because it's apparently very close to being a similar problem yet again, leaving us with no varieties of bananas ready for meeting the demands on growers. Also, fun fact for those who don't know, candy bananas taste wildly different because that's what the original major banana crop tasted like! New bananas taste nothing like the ones your grandparents or great grandparents had. You can still find them, but they're so rare and protected that it's like $45 for a bunch of them.
I've grown a small suburban garden for well over a decade, and tend to base my planting on light needs of particular plants (some areas get more or less light. ) I compost everything from my kitchen, and put it all back into the soil; there have been no problems, but there have been, possibly unfounded worries. . Thank you for clarification!
I rotated after the first year of my garden, not since. Its located on a hillside so I learned quick where the peppers and tomatoes liked to be. Once I saw what areas stayed more moist i adjusted my planting.
This is very helpful. I am getting ready to plant my sweet potato slips and was stressing out about what I could plant it in due to what was grown there last year. Thanks.
Very reassuring. I’ve planted same veg in same spot out of necessity, simply the best set up for my small garden and its various support structures. Mulch, soil replenishment, and keeping it tidy has pretty much eliminated pests and disease. Thanks for the insights.
I am so thankful for your expertise and helping us to understand what is important and what just is not. Thank you. This really is taking a load off of me. I am going to be trying companion planting. I feel like that is a fun way to maximize my space and help with different issues, as well!!
Thank you so much, this is just the info I needed, calming my concerns about these issues. I love you and all that you do to help us less experienced gardeners. I recommend you to all my gardening family and friends.
Late comer to this video as well as the companion planting one.... and you saved my life! I have a small, tightly enclosed garden and I can't tell you how nearly impossible it has been to create plans each year where I can rotate, companion plant and avoid creating shade from climbers. Phew! What a great thing to know!
Thank you so much! I didn't make a record of where I planted everything last year and you're right! It gets hard to rotate crops in a home garden, especially when you can't remember where everything was! I'm so glad I can stop worrying about that!! Another great video Luke!
You make some great points here howerver I do prefer to rotate crops but I don't always. There is a farm nere me who I have seen fertilise with manure. They piled up several tones and the edge of the fields. I didn't see how they spread it. This was manure made from water purification facilities and not animal manure.
Sure wish I knew this before! I have 9 raised beds & have been crop rotating for the past 5 years diligently & it has been very time consuming. I make my own compost & amend my soil twice a year. Got my garden all in for 2019 but next year I will follow your advice! Love your videos😊
Wow, that makes sense. Sometimes the obvious is overlooked cause we just go along with what 'they' say & we never think why they're saying that. Thank you.
You saved me a lot of hassle with building new beds Luke, I'm just going to focus on keeping the soil nutritious from now on and keep my garlic in the same bed next year
I fully agree with you. I grow my potatoes in the same bed..I have done it for 7 years. I just throw cheap bags of organic compost into the old soil, mix it up and everything is good to go.
Watching in May 2020..after I went crazy trying to figure out where to plant everything and planted yesterday 🤦♀️Very informative. There’s next season👩🏼🌾
When I had my community garden plot, I would put my tomatoes, beans, peas, and squash in pretty much the same spots year after year with no ill effect. I kept a compost pile right in the plot. Many of the other gardeners around my plot thought it was unsightly. But, by the next Spring, the stuff in the pile was pretty well composted and I could just mix it in with the rest of the soil.
Love your shirt Luke! Glad i have your families videos to watch! You are so informative. I can see your passion. Where are Levi explains too? Will there be more? Also i know the basics of npk but id love to understand more in depth the scientifics behind it. And why different crops and flowers require specifics. Aaaand (sorry Luke!) I would love to know how to harvest my worm castings efficiently. And your favorite way to use them in detail, such as how much, how often, and for what? Thanks for being a part of my own gardening!
Adding compost is important. I would suggest rotating with legumes like beans or nitrogen fixer cover crops like alfalfa or clover because those replenish the soil with nitrogen and green manure when you TIL it back in, they (beans) taste good and you can grow the cover crops during off season. In terms of pests like aphids you can companion plant some flavorful herbs or alliums, that works for me
This is nice to know lol. I was trying to figure out how rotating would work in my beds as each bed is a mix since I tried companion planting 😅. Good to know I can just do whatever now
Im sort of limited or so I thought... I have a big garden. We live in the country and have hoards of squash bugs and grasshelpers. I did find a great help in diatomaceous earth and adding powdered sugar. Kills those nasty things ... Ive run out of space with the rotation. I do move some things around. Some things are going to have to be replanted in same beds. Good information. Thanks !!!
Thanks tons! Wow what a valuable piece of information I’m a native Michigander living in Toronto. We have the same climate and gardening challenges, for the most part. I really enjoy and learn a lot from all your videos. Hope you get to 1,000,000 subscribers soon!
That's exactly what I've done for 25 years. Works great, especially if you're using worm castings, eggshells, coffee grounds, etc. Also, you might try "banana juice". I put banana skins in a jug of water till I think all the nutrition is out, and use the "juice" as liquid fertilizer. Works great, also.
Love your videos, I learn so much as a gardener. Been a fan for a while, but just found your page. Wish I would have found it long ago. So many great plants and deals. Thanks for the 50% off too! Thanks so much!
Wow. What a good video. Lots of stress relieved. I looked into crop rotation and we don't always hit all.thr categories of rotation. We would miss out on growing our favorite things.
I totally agree. When I first started gardening it was hard to grow anything. Now everything grows. I bought a dying basil for 2$ because I couldn't find one. I took it and cleaned the dirt out and planted it in my old dirt and now I have 7 more basil since I propagate it and planning to make more. I also decided to do my compost with triggs and leaves. This way don't have the problem of smell. In the woods no one gives them nutrients and the trees grows healthy and beautiful so I figured this is the best compost natural and free. Great video
Thank you. Your exposition justified a suspicion I've had for some time i.e., crop rotation on a small scale is pointless when compost and blood & bone is used regularly. My own observations over many years bear out what you say. Some regard to companion planting does not go astray. Decades ago I boarded with a sheep farmer for a while. His home garden went like this: disc half an acre with the tractor. Mix all the seed of different types together in a big bowl. Broadcast seed by the handful thus - one for the house, one for the butterflies and one for the feral goats. The vegetables were brilliant and nobody minded brushing a few caterpillars off the outer leaves. A few sacksful of rakings from beneath the shearing shed slats also helped big time. Col, NZ
Makes a lot of sense. I never followed the package rules anyway, I always did it the way my grandma did. Thanks for confirming what I thought was ok to do.
Thank you for this video! Where I live, I can only have two in-ground beds. I already have enough to deal with limited sunlight due to high buildings around me and just the sheer limited space, crop rotation just complicated matters more to the point of paralysis. I had no idea what to do. I'd rather stick with companion planting and focusing on soil health. Unless you have 7 different beds you can rotate in, it's more trouble than it's worth.
Thank you for this video, really needed it. Home gardener here, and I would like to replant tomato on the same patch of soil next time. Because land is limited and there are so many varieties of tomatoes to grow! I do plant companion plants with them while waiting for the tomatoes to fruit, and there are different plants and flowers in the area, and add home made compost to the soil. Is there a video in which type of old soils to NOT recycle?
Thanks for that. I'm only on my 2nd year but had come to the same conclusion. Since I am adding organic matter between each crop (compost and straw mulch) to my no-dig beds, I vaguely move things around but without following hard and fast rules.
Exactly. Crop rotation refers to growing a completely new crop in a huge land area that a completely different crop was previously grown. It's not going to make much of a difference to just change the position or location of, say, your tomatoes in a small home garden. Thanks, you reinforced what I thought made sense. 👍
I agree! I have been planting my garlic, tomatoes and cucumbers in the same spot for over 10 years. Every year, I top with some - less than an inch - of compost and add a shovel of compost to the planting hole. I have never had any problems. I rotate the rest of my garden veggies based on the plant demands of the nutrients - heavy feeder, than a light feeder.
Thanks for that very informative video Luke, it was really interesting. this is my first year in my new garden and having always followed a four year crop rotation calendar before I think I will allow myself to be a little more relaxed from now on.
Thank you!!! We do crop rotate, for all those reasons you mentioned. Its nice to know we dont have to. We do put mushroom compost in our beds every year. And when planting i add organic water soluble fertilizer. Does this sound like enough? Thanks again for the great video!!💕
So correct. The volunteer tomatoes grow extremely well year after year in the asparagus bed where it receives manure and or compost each fall as well as wood ash. No blight fantastic production grow up to frost.
Gardening for about seven years and I always wonder about this in the spring when planting. Have been trying to build my soil for almost two years now. Thank you for this video, makes perfect sense. Also thanks for the info on Mono-culture. Living in Iowa it's sad to see the lack of diversity. Forty percent of the corn we grow goes in our gas tanks. In what world does that make sense?
what video I would like to see is a Calender break down. What you plant when and where (indoors for transplant or outside). Combining your many many transplants with your fall planting and early spring in-ground planting. I just watched one of your videos and you talk about how you "broadcast" seeded a bed with spinach late in the fall, and how they came up in the spring (well some did). Do you start transplants mid-summer for a spring planting, to increase your growing season? etc
1,000,000 thank yous for this video. I have been telling this to people for 25 years, and they never believe me. I will send this video on to a bunch of people to tell them to stick their pitchforks where their compost shines. I have a 50 x 2 foot area and 14 separate 4 x 4 raised beds, and I can produce as much as some small farms. I used to do square foot gardening, and now I do even more intensive. I have cucumbers as close together as radishes, and they produce more than we can eat. We give the extra to elderly neighbors that cannot garden any more.
I'd give your comment a hundred thumbs-up if I could. :)
Awesome!
@wi54725 That is so nice of you to share your excess veg! We could all do that this year.
@@pjd2709
If you have Sr. Housing near you, that's a great place for sharing.
That is awesome. Grandmas and grandpas tend to appreciate clean fresh food. 👍👍
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I can't plant rotate because of my garden layout. Now I will embrace it instead of stressing about it.
Likewise. I am not moving my T posts and trellises year after year.
Thank you, Luke! Some people following my gardening blog are puzzled as to why I drive in huge harvests each year despite not sticking to the rotation "rules" (I'd quickly run out of space, that's why I didn't even start to follow the rules. I only have 450 square meters to work with). I'm tired of explaining why I don't and why my experience tells me it's not necessary. Now I can just link them to your video, haha!
I'm in my 9th decade and still do organic gardening in washer and dryer tubs. I've used the same soil and planted the same plants in the same containers for 20 years. NO problems whatsoever! I raise red wigglers (yes ~ in my house) and their "contributions", plus powdered egg shells, provide marvelous food for me with a plentiful abundance to share with those who are less blessed.
Thanks for THIS, and ALL your great videos!
Sure wish I could raise figs, bananas, avocados, etc where I live! (Not to mention kumquats, loquats, apricots, pomegranates, etc!)
Annie B I just love this comment! God bless you!
Check out David the good, he's here on TH-cam and also has a book pushing the zone that might be interesting to you
Annie B great post
@@beckyreynolds1206
Thanks Becky, and God bless you, too!
Are you by any chance a Pre-Tribber?
@@victoriajankowski1197
Thanks, Victoria. I, too, love David the Good although I don't have the book as I have problems reading since botched eye surgeries.
Any suggestions on Edible Weeds?
Do you grow Egyptian walking onions?
Yummy, E-Z to grow, prolific but non-invasive. Put some in the ground and forget about them until you want to pull one.
You're such a good communicator, Luke... like the doctor of dirt! My parents threw some Elephant Garlic into the backyard back in the Eighties, and it still happily volunteers each year.
Very informative, thank you, like you say it's not easy to rotate in my small garden, and now thanks to this video, I went feel bad planting tomatoes in the same spot as the last few years, what a relief. Thanks again, I've learnt so much from your gardening videos.
You're absolutely right and this is very well-explained.
I live in Scotland and traditionally we would have really wet weather for months and months on end. It didn't matter whether I had potatoes in a well-cultivated bed, in a new bed made up on fresh ground, or 300ft away in growing bags and containers - potato crops would have blight to some degree.
Last year, we had a peculiarly hot Spring - and not a trace of blight to be found on any of the potatoes, even though some surviving tubers had resprouted in the same beds I'd used in previous years. They were perfectly good - and that's when I began to have my own doubts about crop rotation for everything.
In recent years, I have gone beyond remaking beds with just the compost made from kitchen scraps. Now I add lots of moss (as it grows really thick and lush by the stream and quickly breaks down into the most beautiful compost), chopped dead ferns and bracken, lots of half-decomposed leaves (oak, hazel & beech) dredged from the stream, crumbling twigs, beech mast & beech flowers. This year I have the addition of horse manure courtesy of my new neighbour's horse.
For me, the addition of nutritional materials is not a once a year job. If I find something 'suitable' I can add to the soil when plants are actively growing (without swamping them of course), it's added.
Variety does keep pests under control, and once you taste the difference between shop-bought spinach and home-grown you quickly learn to suffer a few slug holes or a little beetle nibbling the edges.
Debbie Henri - potato blight is AIRBORNE. I am also from Scotland, the reason we didn't suffer blight in2018 was that the humidity in the air was low due to the hot, dry weather. Please simply Google potato blight and find some reputable advice not the misleading nonsense on this channel. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
OMG
I just stumbled on this video-4 years after it was posted. Thank you so much. I am new to gardening. I started last spring and failed (so much to learn). My fall garden was much better and this year was even better. I’m in zone 8A (coastal southeast NC)
It’s not easy but you take so much of the anxiety away. I do enjoy fall gardening because it’s cooler and no humidity! Thank you for all you do.
Thank you for answering all my concerns regarding rotating crops, and for making my garden planning a heck of a lot easier from now on!
thanks for the video. I always crop rotate and it is often a pain. I will be happy to not worry about that so much in the future.
Luke, I'd like to applaud you for challenging the status quo! You've taught me so much! You're my Garden Hero!
Thank you so much! I have put far too much work and stress into trying to rotate crops in four 3x6 beds.
Great video, immense amount of practical knowledge. The natives had it right with the three sisters corn, squash and beans grown together. Where the bean climbs the corn, the nitrogen intensive corn is fed by the nitrogen fixer bean plant and the squash grows on the ground so that weeds are blocked out and rodents dislike climbing over the squash to get the corn and the beans.
I'm from Alabama where the Boll Weevil was a big deal. You are right that farming on a large scale is different from backyard gardening. The greatest advice is to know your soil and know your plants. If I can't amend the soil in time for a planting, I let that bed rest until I can get to it. Same if there was a pest or fungal issue. Then I'll just rotate that crop to another location. Reusing soil hasn't been a big issue unless I failed to address any prior issues.
So thankful for this video! I’m a first timer and was already starting to plan for next year and it was stressing me! Now I can peace knowing I can just retry what works in the same spot!
No one has ever explained crop rotation to me like you just did. Makes sense. Thanks ☮️🇨🇦
This a huge relief! In a 30 x 40 garden with a mix of sun it drives me crazy to plan on rotations and spacing. I finally decided to do it my own way because of space limitations and time constraints. I have had zero issues. I use mainly organic fertilizers and natural materials like organic matter like leaves, compost and wood chips. Yes I do use the occasional commercial fertilizer at times but I use it sparingly.
Recently as an aside we had cedar rust (fungus?) on a Honey Crisp apple tree. I used organic Serenade and a heavy mulch. WOW WOW. The tree I was going to be taken out last fall and I gave it one last year. Well this year it looks amazing. Fingers crossed. So organic methods do work.
Well, that just saved me a whole lot of unnecessary stress. Thanks, Luke!
I always like what you have to say. You are a FAST talker!!! I finally figured out how to set it at 75%. Much better for this gray haired gardener. 😊
Thank you for saving me a $30 subscription to Garden Planner. Also, thank you for reminding me of the difference between monoculture and polyculture.
Already bought it. 🙄
THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO!! I've been racking my brain on how to accomodate my drip irrigation setup for crop rotation but what you said makes so much sense. This info helps a lot.
I’ve had such a hard time with cucumber beetles this year and everyone keeps telling me to stop growing squash for a couple of years. I’m hesitant not just because I love my squashes and they love my soil, but it took me 4 years of growing squash to build up a healthy population of squash bees. I used to have to manually pollinate those plants because there were no bees, and they do a way better job than me! If I starve the beetles of squashes, I’d have to starve the squash bees too and start over. I think I might just be stuck with the annoying beetles…
Thanks for sharing I never crop rotated. I do just like you add to my soil.
Tameka Hill
I totally agree with Luke. I have planted tomatoes in the same garden bed for 10 years. I've learned a lot over the years, and last summer was my best season yet. I keep the soil fresh and healthy and stuff grows. :)
Thank you for another great video. We practiced crop rotation on the family farm when I was a kid, but as a home gardener I've never done so. It simply not necessary. I just love your passion for gardening. How about an update on the 87year old tomato? I'd love to know how its going.
I totally agree. I've had years where I've rotated my garden crops and then I've planted things in the same places for several years. My garden hasn't suffered from either practice. What matters is soil amendments. Compost is absolutely the best thing ever.
You just explained what I needed to know. Million thanks to you. I have a small garden and only grow vegetables for myself and sometimes give some to my friends. And it makes so much sense!
I used the same 12' x 12' rised bed for 7 years, and I grew the same thing every year in the same spot, and I never had any issues, but one and that was Aphips. I would just go to my local farm supplies and get a deal of Ladybugs, and that fixed my problem. I did every years I needed to add some more potting mix, plus any compost I had as well, and my garden produced a whole lot of vegetables.
Exactly the problem I have had. I never really rotated my crops until about 4
years ago when I started using a gardening program that said I could not plant
my tomatoes and garlic in the same spot that I had done the year before. The
next few years my tomato harvest went way down and not only that, but my
cucumber harvest too. This year I am
planting them in the same place where they did so well for years in hope that
it will make the difference. Thanks for
the very helpful info.
I think many gardens only have one place that is sunny/warm enough for tomatoes (where I live they are mostly grown indoors or in greenhouses, but a south-facing wall could also work). Do you think this is the case with your garden? Do you add a lot of material between growing seasons?
AT LAST FOUND SOMEONE WHO TALKS SENSE thanks for your time 🐞🐦👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Thanks for sharing. You hit the nail on the head. People who question you should look into Back to Eden Gardening and how it works. I do raised beds which can apply the same principle. Love your videos
THANK YOU!! I need to simplify!! I always make things too complicated! Garden rotation has always caused me stress!
I have a very small garden with a large raised bed and many pots while I live with my aunt and uncle but I love being able to help with food in this way and it’s such a good way to help with anxiety and stress! I’ll be moving within this year so a yard is definitely my top priority! These videos are always so helpful for me and I love watching!
I feel its nicer sometimes to just plant the seed in the ground rather than being worried about macroscale consequences and rather see how what you've done influenced your microclimate.
I didn't like my arugula at all, but I got complacent, let it flower, and my god the bees going insane, and the first time ever I seed a bird even eat the seeds from it!
It's so easy in gardening to get bogged down with rules, season, lighting, etc for instant success.
We forget to be our child likes selves and explore our curiosities and study our failures.
Oh my goodness! Thank you for this video! So,so many questions answered! You are so knowledgeable and precious! Thank you for everything you do!❤
You nailed it, buddy. This is why we should all have a home vegetable garden. Sustainable farmer Newman Turner grew a record crop of wheat because he had his "temporary ley" system which interspersed and rotated pastures with grain crop production, but for fruits and vegetables, the compost method is the most efficient and sustainable answer, especially with chickens.
Thank you for giving me some peace. I have tomatoes in the same bed for 5th or 6th year in a row. Last winter I added some forest soil and wood ashes. I have the best tomato plants ever. They are almost 5 feet tall, with tons of green tomatoes on them.
That's great news, Luke. I'm done with stressing about unnecessary crop rotation!
I've grown beautiful tomatoes in the same containers for nigh on 15 years now. Glad you agree!
Me, too, for 20+ years. NO problems!
This was really good to learn. This year I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the crop rotation thing and am so glad that I don't really need to do it!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Keep saying this. Regularly. Throughout the year. Please! Especially in the spring and fall!
Great info. I've been wary about planting nightshades together but this has gotten me to rethink that.
Thank you for bringing up the bananas! We're actually in the middle of a huge fight to not have the same exact thing happen with our current monoculture banana, too, because it's apparently very close to being a similar problem yet again, leaving us with no varieties of bananas ready for meeting the demands on growers.
Also, fun fact for those who don't know, candy bananas taste wildly different because that's what the original major banana crop tasted like! New bananas taste nothing like the ones your grandparents or great grandparents had. You can still find them, but they're so rare and protected that it's like $45 for a bunch of them.
Luke, I’ve been watching your videos for years but this is by FAR the one I’ve needed to hear the most! Thank you so much for explaining this!!
I've grown a small suburban garden for well over a decade, and tend to base my planting on light needs of particular plants (some areas get more or less light. ) I compost everything from my kitchen, and put it all back into the soil; there have been no problems, but there have been, possibly unfounded worries. . Thank you for clarification!
I rotated after the first year of my garden, not since. Its located on a hillside so I learned quick where the peppers and tomatoes liked to be. Once I saw what areas stayed more moist i adjusted my planting.
This is very helpful. I am getting ready to plant my sweet potato slips and was stressing out about what I could plant it in due to what was grown there last year. Thanks.
Very reassuring. I’ve planted same veg in same spot out of necessity, simply the best set up for my small garden and its various support structures. Mulch, soil replenishment, and keeping it tidy has pretty much eliminated pests and disease. Thanks for the insights.
I am so thankful for your expertise and helping us to understand what is important and what just is not. Thank you. This really is taking a load off of me. I am going to be trying companion planting. I feel like that is a fun way to maximize my space and help with different issues, as well!!
Thanks for the info, I was told I shouldn't plant potatoes two years in a row in the same spot. Good to know I can!
Exactly what I've been wondering and stressing about. Thanks for the informative video!
Rachelle O Me too! Perfect timing. 😃
Hmm. Food for thought. I rotate vegetables in my small raised bed. What you are saying makes sense.
Thank you so much, I feel better because the way my raised beds are and what I grow crop rotation isn't an option.
I have been looking for this answer and explanation for two years now. Thanks so much.
Thank you so much, this is just the info I needed, calming my concerns about these issues. I love you and all that you do to help us less experienced gardeners. I recommend you to all my gardening family and friends.
Late comer to this video as well as the companion planting one.... and you saved my life! I have a small, tightly enclosed garden and I can't tell you how nearly impossible it has been to create plans each year where I can rotate, companion plant and avoid creating shade from climbers. Phew! What a great thing to know!
In short; you don't need to crop rotate when in effect you soil rotate.
Lol true - You are moving the soil or moving the crops either way
Not soil rotate so much as soil amend I suppose
Thank you so much! I didn't make a record of where I planted everything last year and you're right! It gets hard to rotate crops in a home garden, especially when you can't remember where everything was! I'm so glad I can stop worrying about that!! Another great video Luke!
So basically just feed your soil by continually adding compost. Simple and easy to do. Thanks Luke.
You make some great points here howerver I do prefer to rotate crops but I don't always. There is a farm nere me who I have seen fertilise with manure. They piled up several tones and the edge of the fields. I didn't see how they spread it. This was manure made from water purification facilities and not animal manure.
Sure wish I knew this before! I have 9 raised beds & have been crop rotating for the past 5 years diligently & it has been very time consuming. I make my own compost & amend my soil twice a year. Got my garden all in for 2019 but next year I will follow your advice! Love your videos😊
i swear you're my favorite internet gardening advisor!
Thank you so much for this! Saved me from much further hair pulling planning.
I like how you say “In the gardening we should simplifying things not making things complicated”.
Wow, that makes sense. Sometimes the obvious is overlooked cause we just go along with what 'they' say & we never think why they're saying that. Thank you.
You saved me a lot of hassle with building new beds Luke, I'm just going to focus on keeping the soil nutritious from now on and keep my garlic in the same bed next year
I've been growing my garlic in the same bed for 10 years or more. No problem.
You just made my life a lot easier. Thanks and God bless!
you just keep hitting it out of the park with your 2019 growing season videos
I fully agree with you. I grow my potatoes in the same bed..I have done it for 7 years. I just throw cheap bags of organic compost into the old soil, mix it up and everything is good to go.
Watching in May 2020..after I went crazy trying to figure out where to plant everything and planted yesterday 🤦♀️Very informative. There’s next season👩🏼🌾
When I had my community garden plot, I would put my tomatoes, beans, peas, and squash in pretty much the same spots year after year with no ill effect. I kept a compost pile right in the plot. Many of the other gardeners around my plot thought it was unsightly. But, by the next Spring, the stuff in the pile was pretty well composted and I could just mix it in with the rest of the soil.
Love your shirt Luke! Glad i have your families videos to watch! You are so informative. I can see your passion.
Where are Levi explains too? Will there be more? Also i know the basics of npk but id love to understand more in depth the scientifics behind it. And why different crops and flowers require specifics.
Aaaand (sorry Luke!) I would love to know how to harvest my worm castings efficiently. And your favorite way to use them in detail, such as how much, how often, and for what?
Thanks for being a part of my own gardening!
Adding compost is important. I would suggest rotating with legumes like beans or nitrogen fixer cover crops like alfalfa or clover because those replenish the soil with nitrogen and green manure when you TIL it back in, they (beans) taste good and you can grow the cover crops during off season. In terms of pests like aphids you can companion plant some flavorful herbs or alliums, that works for me
This is nice to know lol. I was trying to figure out how rotating would work in my beds as each bed is a mix since I tried companion planting 😅. Good to know I can just do whatever now
Im sort of limited or so I thought... I have a big garden. We live in the country and have hoards of squash bugs and grasshelpers. I did find a great help in diatomaceous earth and adding powdered sugar. Kills those nasty things ... Ive run out of space with the rotation. I do move some things around. Some things are going to have to be replanted in same beds. Good information. Thanks !!!
Thanks tons! Wow what a valuable piece of information I’m a native Michigander living in Toronto. We have the same climate and gardening challenges, for the most part. I really enjoy and learn a lot from all your videos. Hope you get to 1,000,000 subscribers soon!
I'm so glad to hear this. I was wondering "why can't I just amend the soil?" Especially as I'm only growing in containers. Thanks!
That's exactly what I've done for 25 years. Works great, especially if you're using worm castings, eggshells, coffee grounds, etc. Also, you might try "banana juice". I put banana skins in a jug of water till I think all the nutrition is out, and use the "juice" as liquid fertilizer. Works great, also.
Love your videos, I learn so much as a gardener. Been a fan for a while, but just found your page. Wish I would have found it long ago. So many great plants and deals. Thanks for the 50% off too! Thanks so much!
Wow. What a good video. Lots of stress relieved. I looked into crop rotation and we don't always hit all.thr categories of rotation. We would miss out on growing our favorite things.
Great info Luke. As always, enjoyed your video.
Yes. Finally. I think this is the best advice I've been given to date.
I totally agree. When I first started gardening it was hard to grow anything. Now everything grows. I bought a dying basil for 2$ because I couldn't find one. I took it and cleaned the dirt out and planted it in my old dirt and now I have 7 more basil since I propagate it and planning to make more. I also decided to do my compost with triggs and leaves. This way don't have the problem of smell. In the woods no one gives them nutrients and the trees grows healthy and beautiful so I figured this is the best compost natural and free. Great video
Thank you. Your exposition justified a suspicion I've had for some time i.e., crop rotation on a small scale is pointless when compost and blood & bone is used regularly. My own observations over many years bear out what you say. Some regard to companion planting does not go astray. Decades ago I boarded with a sheep farmer for a while. His home garden went like this: disc half an acre with the tractor. Mix all the seed of different types together in a big bowl. Broadcast seed by the handful thus - one for the house, one for the butterflies and one for the feral goats. The vegetables were brilliant and nobody minded brushing a few caterpillars off the outer leaves. A few sacksful of rakings from beneath the shearing shed slats also helped big time. Col, NZ
Makes a lot of sense. I never followed the package rules anyway, I always did it the way my grandma did. Thanks for confirming what I thought was ok to do.
Thank you for this video! Where I live, I can only have two in-ground beds. I already have enough to deal with limited sunlight due to high buildings around me and just the sheer limited space, crop rotation just complicated matters more to the point of paralysis. I had no idea what to do. I'd rather stick with companion planting and focusing on soil health. Unless you have 7 different beds you can rotate in, it's more trouble than it's worth.
Thank you for this video, really needed it. Home gardener here, and I would like to replant tomato on the same patch of soil next time. Because land is limited and there are so many varieties of tomatoes to grow! I do plant companion plants with them while waiting for the tomatoes to fruit, and there are different plants and flowers in the area, and add home made compost to the soil. Is there a video in which type of old soils to NOT recycle?
Thanks for that. I'm only on my 2nd year but had come to the same conclusion. Since I am adding organic matter between each crop (compost and straw mulch) to my no-dig beds, I vaguely move things around but without following hard and fast rules.
Great to hear this. I don't have a big enough area to rotate mt tomatoes, beans and peas.
Exactly. Crop rotation refers to growing a completely new crop in a huge land area that a completely different crop was previously grown. It's not going to make much of a difference to just change the position or location of, say, your tomatoes in a small home garden. Thanks, you reinforced what I thought made sense. 👍
I agree! I have been planting my garlic, tomatoes and cucumbers in the same spot for over 10 years. Every year, I top with some - less than an inch - of compost and add a shovel of compost to the planting hole. I have never had any problems. I rotate the rest of my garden veggies based on the plant demands of the nutrients - heavy feeder, than a light feeder.
Thanks for that very informative video Luke, it was really interesting. this is my first year in my new garden and having always followed a four year crop rotation calendar before I think I will allow myself to be a little more relaxed from now on.
Thank you!!! We do crop rotate, for all those reasons you mentioned. Its nice to know we dont have to. We do put mushroom compost in our beds every year. And when planting i add organic water soluble fertilizer. Does this sound like enough? Thanks again for the great video!!💕
Extremely thankful for this video
So correct. The volunteer tomatoes grow extremely well year after year in the asparagus bed where it receives manure and or compost each fall as well as wood ash. No blight fantastic production grow up to frost.
Such helpful information and it makes so much sense, thank you so much!
Thanks for this info as I've been so stressed out about this!
Good info, i was stressing on rotations this year but mostly i have stuff interspersed all over
Gardening for about seven years and I always wonder about this in the spring when planting. Have been trying to build my soil for almost two years now. Thank you for this video, makes perfect sense. Also thanks for the info on Mono-culture. Living in Iowa it's sad to see the lack of diversity. Forty percent of the corn we grow goes in our gas tanks. In what world does that make sense?
what video I would like to see is a Calender break down. What you plant when and where (indoors for transplant or outside). Combining your many many transplants with your fall planting and early spring in-ground planting. I just watched one of your videos and you talk about how you "broadcast" seeded a bed with spinach late in the fall, and how they came up in the spring (well some did).
Do you start transplants mid-summer for a spring planting, to increase your growing season? etc
THANK YOU for sharing your knowledge with us. This is super helpful.