Crop Rotation with moving containers

[mr_yan]

Half of my veg garden space is made of 20 to 30 gallon containers. Small enough that I can and do move them around season to season. I am careful to rotate veg through the containers but is there a reason not to grow the same things in the same location but different container year to year?

For instance I have a few different trellises that are great for squash vines and indeterminant tomatoes and I just put different containers in each location each year.

Thanks

 

[lynpenny]

you move crops around because there are diseases that will stay in the ground and effect the new crop. Also there are different nutrient levels for different crops so moving them around can be helpful. I know peas affix nitrogen to the soil and others deplete it. also there are the bugs that lay eggs in the soil that can devastate a crop if it is planted there again. get the idea. many reasons to do it.

 

[mr_yan]

I understand the idea of rotation because of soil depletion, subterranean pests, and disease harboring but with this I am actually moving the container and soil in which the plant is growing. With the size of a backyard garden does it really matter with above ground pests as we simply don't have much room to move a crop a significant distance.

After reading a paper by Glover and Lindermann of New Mexico State University I question the idea of beans as nitrogen fixation within a home garden. As most of the garden waste we make goes into a compost pile and then the compost distributed through the garden the nitrogen fixed from the atmosphere does not supply the location in which the bean was grown.

The amount of nitrogen returned to the soil during or after a legume crop can be misleading. Almost all of the nitrogen fixed goes directly into the plant. Little leaks into the soil for a neighboring nonlegume plant. However, nitrogen eventually returns to the soil for a neighboring plant when vegetation (roots, leaves, fruits) of the legume dies and decomposes.

This is from Nitrogen Fixation by Legumes (Guide A-129)
http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_a/a-129.pdf

 

[Randy]

I have four containers on our back porch, but I only plant one of them every year and that one is for a tomato. The other three contain mint, sage and chives, and rosemary. I add some compost to the tomato container and also a little commercial fertilizer. I use that container to grow a "Sungold" cherry tomato. I also plant one in the garden and the one out there always does much better. The one on the back porch is for grazing when you walk by it.