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Canada

Some people claim you shouldnt plant your plants in the same location as the year before say you always plant your tomotoes at one end and pumpkings on the other each year you should move your plant locations around

true or doesnt relaly matter?

Dave

9/27/2003 11:21:03 PM

Montoursville, PA

That's a dad gum hard question to answer. If you are loading up heavily with manures and organic ammendments you may have no difficulty. Mother nature does not rotate crops except by accident such as lightening set forest fires, floods, volcano eruptions and such. Please note however that where she does not rotate and never did a vast diversity of organic material is deposited on top of the soil to break down into compost and humus. In order to be in tune with nature you would need to be sure you replace what you used and then some with manures and leaves. You may be absolutely committed to regular cover crops and at least lite mulching in order to do pumpkins on pumpkins year after year.

Mother does indeed repeat same crops where those crops grew before and always has. She has no natural crop rotation but she has great diversity of crops even where the mighty redwoods follow themselves by natural reseeding. The understory of all great forests were a great diversity when they were developing. After maturing the understory does not have light to survive and does not appear again until maturity is removed by harvest or natural destruction. This is at the very least an interesting observation. It is fodder for consideration as we move on down with our individual growing methods.

Of course mother does not go to the farm supply store and grab a truck load of synthetics either. She seems to be quite content to grow her crops efortlessly right where the mighty oak fell in the rotting parts of the mighty oak.

Somewhere within this wonderfull mystery of life there is a ballance. How hard you wish to work at it plays into the answer. I do not believe there is a simple yes /no answer to your question.

9/28/2003 10:53:24 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Even Mother doesn't grow effortlessly. In nature it's survival of the fittest. For every winner there are many losers. All compete for the same patch of space.

It might be worth noting that 1000 lbers aren't found growing by mistake anywhere.

The Devil's advocate has to remind himself of this when toying around with the scales of Mother's balance. Justice will prevail in the untended patch!

Steve

9/28/2003 11:58:06 AM

Garden State Pumpkins

If I understand the questiion It's not free standing open space but a cultivated garden....Crop rotation has been practiced for years if not centuries. Allowing different crop to grow allow for recharging the soil of nutrients and removing food sources of pathogens. I would suspect rotating pumpkins and tomatoes is no great shake since both are vines and require much the same feeding schedule...and harbor many of the same pathogens. so rotating these 2 crops probably isn't what the doctor had in mind.

Chuck

9/28/2003 12:37:30 PM

Long Island,New York

I have to agree with Chuck here...Im going through the disease thing now. Crop rotation is important but most effective when rotating between crops that require different nutrients (or quantities) and crops that dont suffere from similar pathogens. I would imagine rotating tomatoes and pkns will do no benefit since they both feed very heavily and suffer from many of the same pathogens. What I mean if if the fungus in your soil is happy eating pkns roots and you replace those pkn roots with tomato roots next year its ok as long as the fungus doesnt eat tomato roots ! Tomato and pkns are hosts for many similar nasties so that rotation wont likely work.
If you apply too much of mother nature's ways to the methods and plants we do with giant pumpkins you will be back to the 200lbers in no time. Mother nature is a good guide but it just dont work here. Its nice to think if we just did what comes naturally ...get back to nature...we'd be doing 1000plus no problem.....it just aint so.....G

9/28/2003 1:04:47 PM

Key West, FL

Great question! I think if you can, planting at opposite ends of the patch each year could give an edge. Who really knows though?

9/28/2003 1:57:17 PM

Montoursville, PA

There is one person among us that had used entirely synthetics for many years with little crop rotation. He lost it as you might assume. Then he pulled the reversal to nearly all organics withdrawing from most synthetics. With loads and loads of manure and leaves plus cover and carefully selected "nearly organic" liquids he has built that same soil back to 900 lb. plus pumpkins in the past five years. The past three years have just about but not quite shown him the four numbers we all wish we had. Some of you know him. If you do not and would like to consider some healthy patch moves with less harsh additives you can reach Craig Lembke cjlemb@webTV.net I chose his program of helping mother because of his personal desire to use as little harsh products as humanly possible. Secondly because I am a two plant grower and likely will not find it possible to develop new ground. I need to be very carefull with anything that would upset the natural ballence of the patch. At my age I do not have five years to rebuild a sick patch. AT my age keeping me healthy is a challenge equal to that faced in the healthy patch planning.

9/28/2003 3:50:30 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I will argue with nothing that has been said here. It is all good.

Now is as good a time as any to spring my burning question:

Has anyone ever gone all hydroponic with AG's? I know how I would do it. But want to speak with someone who has been down this road before considering the journey myself.

Steve

9/28/2003 4:22:21 PM

Oz

someone said disneyworld had one,,,,,

9/28/2003 11:14:55 PM