What is crop rotation, why is it typically recommended, and is it necessary in a Ruth Stout garden? Let’s find out!
OTHER YOUTUBERS ON CROP ROTATION:
Charles Dowding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXQNnJOBQJc
Gardener Scott: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjCCGen5NF0
MIGardener: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki2Xc8s44sI
Huw Richards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSd-G_o3NGI
Simplify Gardening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS0ELo626fE
Scott Head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYNLi6ZBQaQ
ABOUT THE RUTH STOUT METHOD:
The Ruth Stout Method
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfi-n0Oq38E
Where We Get FREE Garden Mulch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww34XwhdeZ4
Ruth Stout’s Worst Enemy (rhizomatous grass in a deep mulch garden)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwUw_Bq2p1Y
FAQ – Deep Mulch Vegetable Gardening (Ruth Stout Method)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ8ueya4HtI
337 lbs of Potatoes! NO digging, NO watering, and VERY LITTLE work!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlratwBT5OI
No-Dig Garlic: Planting, Harvesting, and Drying (Using the Ruth Stout Method)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhpvMg5d1OM
I love exploring new ideas. Great topic. I have a crop rotation concept that's not necessarily "crops". The idea is to have 2 garden plots, both fenced with the chicken coop in the middle. Give the chickens one side one year, one side the next. I believe this could deal with weeds, add a lot of organic fertilizer, and technically let the little feathered velociraptors be like rototillers.
Really cool brother
Thank you for sharing
Hope you have a great day
God bless you and your's
Just saying
Crop rotation and cash crop monocultures are basically inventory management for large scale business. Like you said, home gardeners are neither large scale nor (for the most part) a business. Indeed for our situation a chaos garden polyculture system gives the most output for effort.
I agree crop rotation is mostly useless for small gardens, nature regularly grows even the same annuals in the same spot. As long as soil biology is high, crop rotation is pointless. Even large monoculture farms could probably do without if they used more biology friendly solutions like cover crops, grazing residuals, humic acid, etc.
Monoculture:
“The solution is the problem.”
Pests and disease arent as much of a issue for home gardener . Big mono farms are not only the same species .In most crops the plants are genetically identical . If a disease Can get hold of one plant they own them all
In the 1970s the wealthiest man in the USA his name was Richard Ludwig. Shakey's pizza the first big national chain was his hobby . He'd spend months making decisions on what toppings go on a new pizza.
He spent a afternoon developing a an . He had 2 giant pulp mills built on barges in Japan.
They were to big to fit in the panama canal and had to sail around the horn to get to south America. He'd bought a piece of land the size of Connecticut . He stripped the la d bare then he had trees planted fast growing hardwood . Well after a few years he got a disease. Normally a easy problem to fix but he'd planted the same tree and covered a area as big as Connecticut. Then it was a giant desert in the rainforest.
Thanks for the info;)
Consider the possibility that crop rotation might be beneficial when growing some plants even if it doesn't matter for most crops. I would guess that Ruth Stout didn't replant tomatoes in the same spot every year. Thanks for the video.
Really great video. Thank you for the info and entertainment.
I highly recommend reading Ruth Stouts' book "How to have a green thumb without an aching back". If you are into gardening you will thoroughly enjoy it! (If you can find one-1950's.).
Chipmunk at 5:51
Rotate your black walnut tree to kill most things trying to grow!
#UltimateRotationHack
I love this! Such good content!
Awe man. Too short.
Miss you both. More video’s please.
I definitely don't bother with crop rotation in my garden. Only I move any plants at all is because I may find a better spot for it. Other than that, I grow the same plants in the same places every single year and amend with compost and it works just fine.
would love to see more videos from you
Love your videos! I’ve always struggled with the concept of crop rotation but after watching your video, I might try ignoring it (for the most part)
Love this. Great topic. My grandfather use to stress over this… till. One season as he was putting down anoter layer compost, bone meaf, I stopped him. Look at all those red wiggles. And there was tons. Working up a storm. H3 said why am I stressing on what plant? It's so high fertility, I'll keep doing what i do by side dress all seasons an in Nov-Dec-Jan throw a cover crop of peas here an there. To this day… I water by my diluted manure tea, side dress, an my oxygenated peas which we always run out of by mid Aug in the freezer
Thank you! Great little video. My mother had a patch near the back door of her terraced house where a friend would plant two rows of runner beans (Scarlet runners) for her every year. In return she made him a fruit cake. Without fail she would have a great crop of beans some of which would be stored in her freezer waiting for our visits. I could never understand how the beans could grow in the same small patch of soil every year.
My approach to gardening is very similar to yours. I have my tomato bed, celery bed, pepper bed, potato bed and different beds for onions. I practice polyculture to the extremes, sometimes too much (shading mostly).
This year I established perennial cover crops in 3 of my raised beds (creeping thyme and oregano). No need to mulch to preserve moisture, (plus it gives the soil organisms living roots through the fall, winter and spring) the plants did it on their own. It worked wonderfully, with an added benefit I will get to.
When I harvested my sweet potatoes, onions and regular potatoes, I discovered I had a huge population of jumping worms. I grow these crops in a Ruth Stout manner except with shredded leaves. As it turns out, I created the perfect environment for the jumping worms and they took full advantage.
As far as I know, I did not have jumping worms last year, I may have introduced them while collecting leaves last fall. All I know is they changed my soil and contaminated about 6 cubic yards of finished leaf mold, big bummer.
As I have been taking plants out of my raised beds, fortunately I have not discovered any jumping worms. I believe it is because I established perennial cover crops instead of mulching with shredded leaves, as I normally do.
I return nutrition to my raised beds in the fall. I feed the soil with comfrey tea, add a fresh layer of finished compost, then cover with shredded leaves. I will continue doing this, because the jumping worms die out during the winter and by mulching in the late fall they will not contaminate the mulch layer.
This was the 3rd year for my current garden. The 1st year I did use inorganic fertilizers, last year I used organic fertilizers and this year I used no fertilizers. I am trying to work with the soil organisms to open up the nutrition I add in the fall.
In my opinion, crop rotation in a garden situation is not needed, unless you have a soil borne disease. Even that, if you have the proper soil biology the plants will fight off those diseases on their own.
Enjoy your videos!
If you click on the B in the red circle it will bring you to my channel. I have a couple garden tours and my 1st video on the jumping worms.
This is good to know as I embark on our first deep mulch winter. So far, 2 beds are completely tucked in for the season with 3 more partially completed and 3 more awaiting creation. Trying to figure out how to move everything to cooperate with companion vs non-companion wishes of certain plants is a logistical mind game! Thanks for the good info.
What a wonderful way to express this. I still constantly hear experienced gardeners saying they have to do it, for the pest and nutrient reasons, which as you point out are mostly unfounded. Of course you had me with the Ruth quotes, I have the tell it like it is part down, working to get the same garden chops in a less easy location, Colorado, where weather has its whim, and you can go to hail anytime. One thing you could add is regarding pests and disease, health plants can better withstand, so that should be the focus. Yes I grow tomatoes right back where I have had blight, because it is the best place, and if I have to rotate nightshades, that is the majority of what I grow. Some blight occasional creeps in at the end of the year where it doesn’t matter. Of course the answer is “more hay”.
Most of the crops you'll be growing, if not all, have already been selectively bred to reduce most of the garden problems that exist, for example, VFN tomatoes vs. heirloom.
I believe if you pay attention to natural systems you will see crop rotation, perhaps on a scale that is larger / longer than farm / garden recommendations but that is a human for you, we think we know it all, until we change our mind.
I find crop rotation helpful for input value, by which I mean, saving money on inputs. It is much cheaper to grow mulch and fertilizer than it is to buy them.
The Ruth Stout method is fantastic for space/time/ability limited people.
The only garden crop I've heard is important to move around is garlic. I'm curious if you have had experienced increased amounts of rust and other pathogens by keeping garlic in the same plot. The theory is that the fungi that feed on garlic will be attracted to it and over time they can produce more spores which infects more of the garlic over time. I've also not researched how/if it varies in colder climates.