One of our big winter plans for the year has been planning the crops to ensure big harvests and diverse plants. I’ve considered what we grew last year and done a very basic crop rotation. This is how you determine what you should grow in each bed each year. Growing plants in the same soil means they are more likely to get soil borne diseases. Tomatoes and potatoes are particularly susceptible to this and it was one of the factors leading to the potato famine. There are all sorts of rules and acronyms that people use (I go with LBAR) to determine their crop order, (there’s also about 100 pages on this in Anna Karenina for some reason). But if like us you are working on small scale you don’t need to be very strict. The main things to remember is not to grow the same crops in the same soil each year. Brassicas (cabbages, broccoli etc) are the most hungry crop so they should be grown after legumes (beans and peas), which are nitrogen fixing and bring nutrients to the soil. These are the B and L in LBAR, alliums (onions and garlic) and roots (carrots, parnships etc) are the A and R. Using this system doesn’t account for all the things we grow such as spinach and leafy crops but it’s useful to have in mind when planning your crops for the year. RHS also has some good information on this if you are inspired to create an in depth plan. Please have a look at our little map for the year and please let me know if you have any more tips or ideas?