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Farmers world-wide have been practicing crop rotation for centuries. The reason for this is that they discovered long, long ago that by growing certain crops in a certain sequence, they were able to optimize the precious resources of the soil.

If one crop is grown season after season, year after year, without a break, the soil will tend to deteriorate in both structure and the content of nutrients. But if crop rotation is practised correctly, each subsequent crop will add nutrients to the soil that were used up by the previous crop. Crop rotation also minimises the risk of nematodes and disease.

The simplest rule of thumb is to grow an above-ground crop and then a below-ground crop. Better still rotate the four crop groups that benefit most from crop rotation. These are:

? cruciferous crops including cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and kale,

? root crops including beetroot, carrots, parsnips, salsify and turnips (remember that potatoes are NOT a root crop, they are a legume),

? solanaceous crops including both tomatoes and potatoes, peppers and eggplants, capsicums and chillies,

? leguminous crops that include all the beans and peas you can think of.

Cucurbitaceous crops - cucumbers, pumpkins, squashes and marrows, and various melons - and various other miscellaneous crops - from Swiss chard and spinach to leeks, celery, lettuce, endive and artichokes - can generally be included anywhere, unless of course they make a bad companion plant to others planted at the same time.

From this you will see that legumes and then the cruciferous crops, including brassicas, should follow-on from your tomato crop.

Legumes are known to trap nitrogen in nodules that form on their roots, adding nitrogen to the soil. But this benefit is only realised if the whole plant goes back into the soil. Harvesting the pods minimises the nutrients, so leave some plants to die and rot.

Leafy vegetables use up loads of nitrogen - which is why you should plant the brassicas after growing beans and peas. But you will still need to feed the soil and add manure and compost for the crop to really thrive. If they do thrive, leafy vegetables will generally enrich the soil with phosphorus, which the root crops thrive on. The root crops then leave behind some extra potassium that our tomatoes love!

Another factor to consider, particularly in terms of solanaceous crops, is that the different types should ideally not be grown within three years of one another. So if you want to grow tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and aubergines, you'll need to plant different areas at different times, rotating the crops differently all the time.

Annette Welsford and Lucia Grimmer are the authors of best selling books How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes and How to Grow Great Potatoes.

Lucia Grimmer is a world renowned expert in plant disease and nutrition who trains horticulturists, agronomists and professional growers. She has won awards for her technical papers and regularly conducts trials on a range of crops with the objective of improving yield and reducing disease.

Their book on Growing Tomatoes has sold to thousands of novice and professional gardeners in 83 countries, and has been featured on TV, radio and leading gardening publications in 4 continents.

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