Crop Rotation in Four Bed Groups: A Rotation You Can Actually Keep Up
Rethinking what goes where every year costs you time and yield. With four fixed bed groups, your rotation almost runs itself.
November is quiet in the garden, but this is exactly when you lay the groundwork for 2027. Crop rotation sounds like spreadsheets and effort, yet it boils down to four groups that you simply shift one position each year.
Why Rotation Is More Than Tidiness
If you plant the same plant family in the same spot year after year, you practically feed the pathogens in the soil. Clubroot in brassicas, or late blight and potato scab in nightshades, are typical results. On top of that comes one-sided nutrient depletion: heavy feeders drain the soil when nothing balances them out.
A fixed rotation eases both without adding work.
The Four Bed Groups at a Glance
Group A is nightshades and cucurbits: tomato, pepper, potato, pumpkin, zucchini. Group B is the cabbage family with all its relatives, including kohlrabi, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and even radishes. Group C combines root and bulb vegetables with umbellifer herbs: carrot, onion, beets, chard, parsley, dill. Group D is legumes and lettuce: beans, peas, lettuce.
Groups A and B are heavy feeders, C is mostly a medium feeder, and D is not very demanding. The nodule bacteria of the legumes even bring nitrogen into the soil.
The Order That Works
The rotation runs in this direction: legumes (D), then brassicas (B), then nightshades and cucurbits (A), then root vegetables (C), and back to D. After the beans the soil is supplied with nitrogen, which is exactly what the brassicas need. Next come the equally hungry tomatoes, and in the fourth year carrots and onions cope well with the less nutrient-rich soil.
That way, brassicas and nightshades get a three-year break before they return to the same spot. This clearly reduces disease pressure. Against clubroot it is not a sure fix on its own, though, because the resting spores survive in the soil for many years. A neutral soil pH (lime only after a soil test) and healthy young plants help as well.
How to Do It in November
First sketch your beds as they were planted in 2026 and assign each bed its group. Then each bed gets the next group in line: the D bed becomes a B bed, B becomes A, A becomes C, and C goes back to D. If you have fewer than four beds, split beds into halves or quarters until you have four areas. It works the same way in a raised bed.
What matters is that you briefly note what stood on each area. One sentence in a notebook is enough, and in spring you no longer have to guess.
Where the Rule Allows Exceptions
Your rotation doesn’t have to be perfect. Densely packed mixed plantings, cover crops and green manure shake it up, and that is fine. As a rule of thumb, brassicas and nightshades should get at least a three-year break before they return to the same spot. With the other groups, the garden is more forgiving.
In Rootivo, you set up your bed for 2027 in the Bed Editor, and the companion-planting lines instantly show you whether the new neighbors suit each other.