Why use crop rotation?
When you create a follow-on plan, the Garden Planner automatically links up to five plans and provides crop rotation warnings to help you avoid growing plants from the same crop family in the same area in the following season, helping you to avoid plant nutrient deficiencies and a build-up of soil-borne pests and diseases.
How crop rotation is used in the Garden Planner
When you then select a plant in a follow-on plan, areas of your plan will display in red to warn you of where you planted the plants in that family on last year’s plan. This makes it easy to find the best place to plant without having to remember the crop family of each plant. You can choose to ignore the warnings if required, which may be appropriate if you have a small garden with too little space for a full crop rotation.
Warnings become dimmer with every new plan, so a crop rotation warning from a plant that was on a plan 3 years ago will be dimmer than a warning for a plant from the previous year (this reflects the reduced likelihood of disease or nutrient depletion as time goes on). The crop rotation warnings disappear once the plant is placed.
Rotating specific plant families
You can also view where you planted crops from a particular family previously by clicking on the Crop Rotation drop-down menu in your plan's toolbar and selecting the crop family you wish to view.
Any questions? Chat to us!
Click on the Live Chat icon in the Garden Planner if you need help or have questions for our gardening experts.
