Crop Rotation
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G a r r d u en o Y
WRITTEN BY JESSICA HOLMES, MASTER GARDENER COORDINATOR-WARREN COUNTY HORTICULTURE EDUCATOR-SARATOGA COUNTY
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Many of us love to garden, especially vegetable gardening, but not thinking about the importance of crop rotation leads to problems. Crop rotation is a practice in which you move plants around in your garden and change the location each season. This helps to reduce plant disease; insect issues and manages soil fertility. Typically crop rotation is based on the vegetable families. Many times, even though the plant is different, the family is the same. To truly do a crop rotation, you need to rotate the families. One example is tomatoes and peppers. They are in the same family called Solanaceae; therefore, you should plant something in a completely different family, like beans from the Fabaceae family, in the area that grew tomatoes or peppers the previous year.
94 | SIMPLY SARATOGA | SPRING H&G 2021
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