What to plant after potatoes: rules of crop rotation

Many gardeners know about the rules of crop rotation. During its life in the garden during the season, each vegetable consumes certain nutrients. Having “registered” in one bed for many years and pulling the same elements out of the ground, this vegetable will inevitably lose its former productivity. In addition, pathogens characteristic of this species will accumulate in the soil.

Rules for crop rotation

Some crops greatly deplete the soil, for example, the well-known beets and cabbage. There are crops that enrich the soil with nitrogen, such as legumes. After them, any vegetable will grow well.

In order to get a wonderful harvest on your plot from year to year, you need to know and follow the rules of crop rotation, that is, what can be planted after. Crop rotation will help to significantly increase the return on land use without significant investment.

According to the rules of rotation, all crops are conditionally divided into 4 groups, according to the type of plant part consumed as food:

Leaves (greens, cabbage, lettuce, spinach). Sensitive to soil nitrogen content.
Fruits (pumpkin, eggplant, zucchini). Demanding on phosphorus.
Root vegetables (onions, potatoes, carrots). Requires a high potassium content in the soil.
Legumes saturate the soil with nitrogen. Their use is especially effective for establishing a complete crop rotation.

Restoration of the site

Potatoes are one of the few crops that can be planted, if necessary, in the same area for several years in a row. However, in order to ensure that the yield level does not fall below the permissible level, a number of special measures will need to be observed.

The most effective way to restore soil fertility is to use fertilizers. Organic and mineral fertilizers contribute to intensive replenishment of the balance of missing microelements in the soil. First of all, the addition of phosphorus and potassium is required. Fertilizers with a high content of these components can be added to the soil both after harvesting in the fall and at the beginning of the spring (a couple of weeks before planting).

It is customary to use rotted manure as organic fertilizers. Herbivore manure is best. Since there are always cattle on farms and villages, they have gained particular popularity. It is very effective in restoring the properties of the soil as it can enrich the soil with the missing elements and also enhance the properties of the soil.

The most appropriate time to treat the garden with manure after potatoes is before planting a new crop. An alternative can be bird droppings (chickens, geese, ducks), which will enrich the soil with nitrogen, potassium and other components.

Before planting potatoes next year, you can sow cereal crops in the garden after harvesting. Oats and rye are best. Legumes are also used - beans, peas. Sometimes mustard or rapeseed is planted.

What grows after potatoes: many options

The peculiarity of the potato crop is that during the growing season it takes phosphorus and potassium from the soil in fairly large quantities. Therefore, after harvesting, it is necessary to compensate for the lack of these substances in the soil by applying appropriate fertilizers. A mandatory activity is harvesting potato tops, as they contribute to the contamination of the soil with various diseases.

It is well known that after potatoes you cannot grow eggplants, tomatoes, physalis, and peppers, since all nightshades are affected by the same pests and diseases. Spores of diseases such as late blight, macrosporiosis, and various rots accumulate in the soil.

Potatoes are not suitable as a precursor for wild strawberries. It takes at least three years to set up a strawberry plantation in place of potato plantings.

In the spring, it is best to populate former potato fields with radishes, spinach, lettuce, radishes, and beets.
Various types of cabbage, onions, garlic, and cucumbers are also suitable.
Beans, peas, zucchini, and pumpkin will feel good next year after potatoes.

It is possible to plant green crops after potatoes, but the best option would be to plant them in another place.

You can sow the area after potatoes with rye, lupine, and oats. These herbs can significantly improve soil fertility by restoring the balance of nutrients in it.

What can you plant after potatoes next year?

Potatoes are considered a good predecessor for many garden and vegetable plants. This is due, among other things, to her eating habits. When planting potatoes, they often add not even humus, but almost fresh manure, since they are fine with this. Over the course of a season, the manure in the bed naturally completely rots, almost without losing volatile nitrogen compounds. Potato bushes consume some of the nutrients, but a fair amount of them, in a form accessible to plants, remains in the soil. Therefore, next year it is enough to just slightly correct the condition of the soil by introducing certain mineral fertilizers, depending on the preferences of the crop chosen for this bed.

Potatoes do not extract very many nutrients from the soil and do not deplete it

In addition, potato bushes are so strong that they suppress the development of most weeds, and the soil remains fairly clean. Not too many toxic substances remain after potatoes. True, it attracts the Colorado potato beetle, and any vegetables affected by this pest have no place next year in the area where potatoes were grown. However, there are few such crops, and almost everything grows well after potatoes. You can plant next year in this place:

Before planting root crops, the former potato bed can be hardly fertilized

Dill and parsley also grow normally in former potato beds, but it’s even better if you plant them in this place a year later.

It is best, of course, if you have time and space, to sow any green manure after the potatoes - herbs that are mowed before flowering. These are, for example, lupine, oats, mustard, etc. Green manures restore the soil well. If the potatoes were harvested early, then the herbs can be sowed this year, then the soil will be in ideal condition by the new season.

How to care for “settled” potatoes: soil, fertilizers, disinfection

Potatoes can grow in one place for no more than three years. But, if it is not possible to change the place where potatoes are planted, you need to take measures to restore soil fertility. Along with this, measures are being taken to replenish the mineral composition of the upper soil layer and disinfect it.

After harvesting, you need to carry out deep digging of the soil with a full rotation of the layer. This technique promotes better soil freezing and the destruction of pests and potato pathogens.

In the spring, when the soil warms up, it is dug up again and fertilizers are applied.

1 kg of potatoes takes from the soil approximately 1-1.2 g of magnesium, 2 g of phosphoric acid, 8-9 g of potassium oxide, 3-4 g of nitrogen, as well as microelements: manganese, boron, zinc, copper, etc.

To replenish these elements, manure or compost is added to the soil for digging. It is better to apply mineral fertilizers when planting in furrows and holes.

Potato plantings respond very well to the addition of ash. It contains microelements that potatoes need to grow. It is also necessary to note its disinfecting effect.

To improve the soil, after harvesting early potatoes, you can sow early ripening green manure and then incorporate them into the soil.

What crops can be planted after onions?

It is not advisable to plant onions, like garlic, in one place for two years in a row. Annual herbs, green manure, cucumbers, early potatoes and legumes will grow best after it. Onions will take root well in place of melons, root vegetables, tomatoes, and peppers.

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Good and bad neighbors of potatoes

For the success of growing vegetables, it is also necessary to take into account the principles of a healthy neighborhood.

The convenience of this approach is that it:

prevents harmful substances from accumulating in the soil;
promotes the most complete use of fertilizers;
Helps effectively fight diseases and pests.

Based on this concept, you can make a list of plants with which cohabitation is most beneficial for potatoes.

Many years of experience in joint planting of potatoes with other crops have shown:

Neighborhood with potatoes is UNDESIRABLE for cucumbers, tomatoes and pumpkins;
Potatoes are “friends” with cabbage and eggplants;
Goes well with onions and corn. Their beneficial effect on potatoes is known;
A wonderful neighbor for beans - it protects it from bruchus, it “treats” it with nitrogen and protects it from such a malicious pest as the Colorado potato beetle;
Excellent neighbors for potatoes are spinach and horseradish.

All these crops are partners because they do not interfere with each other, consuming nutrients from different soil horizons.

Satellite flowers

Flowers are not in last place on the list of useful companion plants. They know how to not only delight the eye with their beauty, but also protect vegetable plantings from diseases and pests.

Marigolds - companions for potatoes

It is useful to plant marigolds between rows: they are enemies of weevils, onion flies and cabbage whites, as well as a cure for fusarium.
Nasturtium will save you from whiteflies and whiteflies. It is an excellent green fertilizer.
Chamomile-pyrethrum is a threat to aphids, as well as caterpillars of the cabbage cutworm and white moth. Rodents don't like it either.
Calendula is a potato protector against the Colorado potato beetle. It is recommended to border potato plantings with rows of calendula. In autumn it can be used as green manure.
Lavender is a protector against ants and aphids.
Dalmatian chamomile (tansy) is a natural enemy of many pests.

When should you not sow tomatoes?

You should not plant tomatoes in place of other members of the nightshade family. These include: peppers, potatoes, eggplant and physalis. You should be careful with plants that are susceptible to the same diseases as tomatoes.

The soil in which potatoes grew contains virtually no nitrogen. This will have a detrimental effect on the growth of tomatoes. You will have to frequently fertilize the soil, which is not only expensive, but can also lead to a poor harvest, since it is very difficult to distribute the feed evenly. Excess fertilizer, as well as deficiency, is harmful to plants.

The principle of “do no harm” on a personal plot

If some combinations of garden and vegetable crops complement each other, stimulating growth and protecting from pests, then other plants get along very poorly in close proximity and cause forced neighbors more harm than good.

So, legumes do not tolerate the proximity to Cipollino and his brothers very well, and a flowerbed with long-blooming marigolds would obviously not be welcome here.

The walnut is an absolute egoist, suppressing any plant that gets into its “inner circle”.

Oddly enough, peas do not like being next to beans, and also negatively perceive being surrounded by tomatoes or rutabaga.

It is undesirable for cabbage to be in proximity to carrots, parsley and tomatoes. The ardent antagonists are cabbage and grapes; with such coexistence, both cultures suffer. It is aggressive against grapes and tomatoes, and it, in turn, suffers from cucumbers, beets, fruiting apple trees and cabbage (cauliflower, red and white cabbage).

Potatoes do not need the company of cucumbers and tomatoes; they do not tolerate pumpkin, celery and sunflowers well (except for a decrease in yield, in this case there is a high risk of late blight infection). The tubers will not be large, but the harvest will be rich if you plant potatoes next to raspberry shoots and fruit trees, in particular apple and cherry trees.

It is better not to alternate gooseberry bushes and currant bushes and plant them away from each other. A disease such as gooseberry moth is easily transmitted between these plants. And the close proximity of strawberry plantations and raspberry thickets provokes the proliferation of colonies of the berry pest - the strawberry-raspberry weevil.

Fruit trees are also not all good neighbors. It is better to plant peach and apricot at the other end of the plot, away from pears, apple trees and cherries.

Sea buckthorn, garden strawberries, eggplant, pepper and tomato have similar infections. And their close location during planting provokes the emergence and massive spread of diseases inherent in these crops.

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Necessary soil conditions

Potatoes prefer fertilized, loose soil that allows oxygen and moisture to pass through well. Under such conditions, tubers develop quickly. If there is caloric starvation, they grow small and elongated.

Necessary soil conditions when planting potatoes

To figure out why you can plant potatoes next year, you first need to consider what problems will arise from a lack of abundantly absorbed substances:

Potassium is needed for photosynthesis, protein and carbohydrate metabolism. Lack of the substance will affect the reduction in yield and weakened immunity to diseases.
Nitrogen helps potatoes absorb potassium and phosphorus. A deficiency of the substance will affect the poor development of tops and tubers, and the ripening time of the crop will be delayed.
Phosphorus stimulates root development, increases the starchiness of tubers, and increases the safety of the crop. With a lack of phosphorus, the formation of buds occurs later, the potatoes and the above-ground parts are inhibited in development.

See also: Potato Agnes - a mid-season variety of German selection

Based on the above conditions, it is now easier to identify good and bad predecessors.

Best neighbors

It is recommended to think in advance about what to plant in the beds adjacent to the cucumbers. Any plants can be placed nearby, but pollinators, flowers, essential herbs, and crops that disinfect the soil will benefit. They are planted not only in neighboring areas, but also between bushes:

marigolds and marigolds can be sown between rows. Flowers attract pollinators. This is true for pollinated varieties of cucumbers. Without pollination, the ovary will not appear on the bushes;
Direct essential herbs, basil, mint, and rosemary are planted around the perimeter. They also attract bees and bumblebees, but repel pests. You can plant dill, parsley, cilantro;
Onions and garlic are planted in neighboring beds. They have a specific smell and have antiseptic properties.

A similar arrangement of plants is observed not only for cucumbers in an open garden bed, but also in a greenhouse. It is not recommended to grow melons and tomatoes together under the same film cover.

Plants require different microclimates. Cucumbers can withstand temperatures up to 30 C. Tomatoes develop well at 25 C.

Plantings must be protected from direct sunlight. To do this, use a mesh that limits the penetration of ultraviolet radiation. The optimal humidity for cucumbers is up to 75%, for tomatoes and other plants of the nightshade family, 60%.

You can make a raised bed in a greenhouse for cucumbers. To do this, lay a black film on the area, pour soil up to 40 cm high on it. The film is connected, forming a furrow. At the end of the season, the soil from the film is collected. It can be placed in a compost bin.

For cucumbers, a plot is provided in advance. It should be sunny and fertile. When choosing a bed, take into account the crop rotation pattern. Helper plants are planted next to the melons. They attract pollinators and repel insect pests.