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  • From: Pam Twin Oaks <pam AT twinoaks.org>
  • To: Market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Double and Triple Cropping
  • Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:16:05 -0400

Kim asked: "Those of you that are double & triple cropping, how are
planning your rotations? Do you for instance ever do this:

 bean -> bean -> something else?"

I can see the value of keeping to one crop family for the entire season: simplicity of rotation planning for the whole farm as one entity. We don't do this, though. Almost all our double cropping is in an area of permanently raised beds, which we plan in an ad hoc way twice a year. The advantage for us is maximal use of a limited space. When we look at crop rotation, we look at how many different crops we have grown since the last time we grew a particular plant family there, (rather than how many years it's been). In our hoophouse we do the same thinking. This lets us grow two beds of tomatoes and half a bed of peppers every year in a choice of 5 beds. We've traded maximal cropping for the simplicity we could have with your system.

Our main plot areas have one main food crop each year, except for a sweet corn/garlic/buckwheat/fall carrots sequence in one plot, giving us 3 crops in two years, and a spring potatoes/fall brassicas/clovers sequence that gives us two crops in one year followed by keeping the clovers all year the next year.

Pam, Twin Oaks, central Virginia
--
Pam Dawling
 
http://www.sustainablemarketfarming.com/
http://www.facebook.com/SustainableMarketFarming
http://www.newsociety.com/Books/S/Sustainable-Market-Farming





  • Re: [Market-farming] Double and Triple Cropping, Pam Twin Oaks, 06/12/2012

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