Success in the garden requires planning. To give your plants a healthy start next year, the best practice is to rotate crops within the same family to a different location than where they’re growing this year. This is known as crop rotation and offers several benefits.
Plants in the same family are typically susceptible to similar pests. Some pests overwinter in the soil; some are able to survive on debris. If the same host is available when the pests emerge in the spring, they will be able to continue feeding and multiply the problem. Crop rotation breaks the cycle of these pests.
Plants in the same families have similar nutrient requirements. Rotating crops prevents
the soil from becoming depleted of those nutrients. Also, the varied root system depths
from one plant family to the next contributes to the health of the soil.
Now is the perfect time to make a map of the vegetable garden so you can switch things up when you plant next year. For example, in the location where tomatoes are growing now, avoid planting anything from the Solanacaeae family (eggplant, pepper, potato) next year.
The Kansas Garden Guide has a helpful table of common vegetable crop families and an example of how to rotate these crops. You can access a digital copy of the Kansas Garden Guide here: https://bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/pubs/kansas-gardenguide_S51.pdf
