- (Focus Area) Yard & Garden
- Author: Dustin W Blakey
Vegetable gardening is both an art and a science, and an important technique for success is crop rotation.
By rotating crops, you can improve soil health, reduce pests, and increase yields. Continuous planting of the same kind of plant in the same place every year is a recipe for creating problems.
Here are 8 rules to follow for effective vegetable garden rotations.
Rule 1: Have Light Feeders Follow Heavy Feeders
Heavy feeders, such as tomatoes and corn, consume large amounts of nutrients from the soil. Following them with light feeders, like carrots or lettuce takes advatage of this difference.
Rule 2: Include Some Soil Improvement Crops
Soil improvement crops, such as legumes, enrich the soil by fixing nitrogen. Planting crops like peas and beans can naturally enhance soil fertility, reducing the need for chemical fertilizers.
Rule 3: Rotate Plants with the Change of Seasons
Different plants thrive in different seasons. Rotating crops with the seasons ensures that your garden is always productive and that soil nutrients are used efficiently throughout the year.
Rule 4: Rotate by Plant Families
Plants within the same family often share pests and diseases. Rotating by plant families (e.g., moving from nightshades to brassicas) can break pest and disease cycles, promoting healthier plants.
Rule 5: Use Rotation to Reduce Pest Populations
Pests can quickly become a problem if the same crop is grown in the same spot year after year. Rotating crops disrupts pest life cycles, reducing their populations and minimizing damage to your garden.
Rule 6: Rotate to Deprive Weeds of Light and Space
Different crops have varying growth habits and can outcompete weeds differently. By rotating crops, you can deprive weeds of the consistent conditions they need to thrive, thereby reducing weed pressure.
Rule 7: Winter is a Good Time to Use Cover Crops
Cover crops planted in the winter protect soil from erosion and add organic matter when they are turned into the soil. They also help to suppress winter weeds and can fix nitrogen, preparing your garden for spring planting.
Rule 8: Don't Be Afraid to Change Your Rotation Plan
Flexibility is crucial in gardening. If something isn't working, don't hesitate to adjust your rotation plan. Pay attention to your garden's needs and be willing to experiment to find the best solutions for your specific conditions.
For more information
There are many resources online that cover garden rotations. There aren't too many bad ones, in fact. Perhaps my favorite is a book called Crop Rotation on Organic Farms: A Planning Manual by Mohler & Johnson. You can buy the print version, but it's also available as a free PDF file. It's nerdy and information dense. Probably overkill for the casual gardener, but if you get serious about gardening or Organic production, it's excellent.
For a simpler introduction, see this article from the Royal Horticultural Society.
/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>/h3>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Those are some of the activities planned when the Bohart Museum of Entomology hosts an open house on managed bees and wild bees on Sunday, May 19.
The open house, free and family friendly, takes place from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus.
It's perfect timing for "World Bee Day," observed annually on May 20.
At the Sunday open house, UC Davis graduate student Richard Martinez of the lab of apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño, associate professor of Cooperative Extension, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will staff the honey bee booth.
Martinez, enrolled in the master's graduate studies entomology program, says that the E.L, Niño Lab booth will display an observation hive and offer honey tasting from a variety of floral sources. He will be sharing recent projects aimed at improving honey bee health via dietary supplements. He also plans to showcase beekeeping suits and hive tools.
Among others scheduled to participate (as of 4 p.m. today) are:
- the laboratory of community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. She will participate with lab members doctoral candidate Lexie Martin, doctoral student Dino Sbardellati, and junior specialist Leta Landucci. "At the Vannette Lab booth, you will be able to look into the life of a bee--both in terms of where they live and how they develop!" said Martin. "A live bumble bee nest and solitary bee nests will be available, so you can peer inside a bee's house! Additionally, there will be live bee larvae to observe under a microscope and interactive displays on the bee life cycle."
- Bohart Museum bee scientists Thomas Zavortink and Sandy Shanks
- Doctoral student Sofía Meléndez Cartagena of the Stacey Combes lab, Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior. She will focus on local bee diversity.
- Chancellor's Fellow Santiago Ramirez, associate professor, Department of Evolution and Ecology, who studies orchid bees
- Doctoral student Peter Coggan of the Ramirez lab. He studies the neurological and genetic basis of orchid bee courtship behavior and evolution.
- UC Davis distinguished professor emerita Lynn Kimsey, who retired as director of the Bohart Museum on Feb. 1, after 34 years as director. Kimsey, known as "the wasp woman," is a past president of the International Society of Hymenopterists. She studied orchid bees in Panama for her dissertation.
The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of eight million insects, plus a live petting zoo, and a gift shop. Professor Jason Bond directs the museum as of Feb. 1, succeeding Kimsey, who served 34 years. Bond is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He also serves as president-elect of the American Arachnological Society.
For more information, access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
/span>Companion planting combines diverse plants in an informed manner to bring a balanced ecosystem into the garden. This approach to gardening has been used by organic gardeners for decades. The idea is to plant herbs and flowers with vegetables to create sustainable gardens with better crop yields.
The “three sisters,” corn, beans, and squash, are perhaps the best-known example of ideal plant companions. They support one another's growth, maximize the growing area's crop yield, and provide a solid diet for their cultivators.
Another well-known group of companions is that of legumes (like beans), with clover and alfalfa. Bacteria invade the root hairs of legumes and make nodules where these beneficial Rhizobium nitrogen-fixing bacteria live. The nitrogen these bacteria fix becomes available to the legume plant and the soil around its roots. Legumes can be worked into the soil, renewing and replacing nitrogen. This reduces the amount of manure and chemical fertilizers needed for heavy-feeding plants.
Companions can help prevent pest problems by repelling pests or attracting the beneficial insects needed to keep down the population of insect pests. Onions are one plant that repels some pests. Marigolds contain thiophene, which deters root nematodes. Chives planted alongside roses repel aphids. Nasturtiums act as a decoy crop for kale and tomatoes by attracting aphids away from the more desirable edibles (once the nasturtium plant has attracted aphids, it is removed from the garden before the aphid young develop wings). Aromatic herbs like basil, rosemary, lavender, and sage, will repel many pests. Mix these in with pest-susceptible plants. The presence of diverse plant species disrupts the ability of herbivorous insects to discover host plants for feeding or egg-laying. The time wasted on non-host plants reduces the reproductive efficiency of specialist insects.
Lists of specific companion plant combinations can be found on websites and in gardening books. Find the best friends for your garden plants, to create sustainable gardens with better yields. Remember to experiment, observe and record how these companions work in your own garden.
PLANT SALE! Mark your calendar for our plant sale on Saturday, May 18, 2024 from 9 am–noon. The sale will be held at the Master Gardeners Demonstration Garden at Patrick Ranch. The plants, which are selected to thrive in our climate, have been propagated by UC Master Gardeners of Butte County. For more information and a partial list of the plants that will available, visit our website.
- Author: Anne Schellman
Called or visited the Stanislaus County UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Help Line and gotten information on what to do about a pest or gardening problem.
Learned something new from a class at a Garden Club, local Stanislaus County Library, Workshop at the Ag Center, or one of our online classes from our YouTube Channel.
Attended an event such as the Stanislaus County Fair, A Wellness Fair for county employees, the Pollinator Garden Event, Earth Day, or a Farmers Market booth and spoken with a Master Gardener.
Read our newsletter, The Stanislaus Sprout and gained helpful gardening and pest management information.
Are a current Master Gardener and would like to give to support the program.
All funds go DIRECTLY to our program.
Prize Challenge Awards
Online gifts made between noon on May 19 and 11:59 a.m. on May 20 may help programs qualify for prize challenge awards! Donations can be made at http://donate.ucanr.edu/givingday.
Checks Accepted
If you prefer sending a check instead of donating online, please make checks payable to “UC Regents” and specify “Stanislaus County Master Gardener Program” in the check memo. Then mail or drop off to our office: UC Master Gardeners, 3800 Cornucopia Way, Ste A, Modesto, CA 95358.
Your Support
Donations directly benefit the program to help provide scholarships to volunteers that want to enroll in our training program and people who can't afford our workshops. They also help replace computers, create prize wheels for fairs, purchase seeds to give away at events, and pay for other materials needed for outreach and education. We thank you for your support!
Anne and the Classes of 2019, 2020, 2022, and soon-to-be 2024 UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners of Stanislaus County.
Anne Schellman has been the coordinator for the program since 2018.
/h3>/h3>/h3>- Author: Ryan Daugherty
Most of us grew up with a lawn. For many of us, mowing the lawn was a part of our weekly chores growing up; yellow spots were treated like a black mark, and a dandelion popping up was like a declaration of war. We have all been brought up in or have participated in lawn care culture in one way or another, without many of us having much of an idea why. Why is the lawn so quintessential in our culture?
The concept of a lawn didn't really exist until relatively recently. Grass was used in landscapes as a frame for more interesting fare, like in the Gardens at Versailles, using it as the tapis vert or green carpet. In fact, before the 18th century, the word lawn itself didn't mean what it does today. The word laune meant a glade or clearing in a forest. Later, as we domesticated livestock, it came to mean more of a pasture where cattle would graze. The concept of the word "lawn" being used to mean a manicured grassy area was first recorded in 1733 in Europe. When lawns were featured in landscapes at the time, they were a status symbol of great wealth. You had to be wealthy to own land, and even wealthier to own land that generated no profit and just looked pretty.
A grass lawn as a landscape feature is largely the influence of "England's Greatest Gardener," Lancelot Brown, commonly known by his nickname "Capability" Brown, because he would often tell his clients that their property had the capability for improvement. Capability was a renowned landscape architect, known for a radical new style at the time called a "gardenless garden" as opposed to the patterned gardens of the day. The hallmarks of Brown's gardenless style were big undulating seas of grass leading straight up to the manor, with scattered plantings of trees and man-made lakes. He designed the landscapes of over 170 of the finest estates in England, making him one of the most prolific and influential landscape architects to come out of Europe. When the American aristocracy (many of them founding fathers) visited these estates, they were enthusiastic about what they saw and incorporated lawns into their estates back home in places like Washington's Mt. Vernon and Jefferson's Monticello. Thus, lawns as a landscape made it to a fledgling United States.
As the United States began to grow both in population and economically, the country took on a decidedly urban look with cramped housing for the new immigrants flooding into the land of opportunity. The European notion of getting away to the countryside couldn't really be practiced because we didn't have countryside; we had a wild, rugged frontier, which had its charms but being a relaxing place to have a picnic wasn't one of them. In response, there was a shift in the ethos of American landscape architecture. There was a growing thought that we wanted our landscapes to be open, welcoming, and ample. Around the same time, "The Father of American Landscape Architecture," Frederick Law Olmsted, designed Central Park in New York. His design heavily featured large grassy areas, strategic plantings of trees, and man-made lakes. Sound familiar? This work influenced other communities across the country to follow suit and design their public spaces with turf as a prominent feature.
Later in 1868, Olmsted would have the opportunity to work on the designs for the first planned suburb in Riverside, Illinois. He required that the houses be set back 30 feet from the road for… you guessed it, a lawn. This suburb served as an example for more housing developments not only because it fit into the aesthetic philosophy of landscape architecture at the time but it was also convenient for building architects and city planners. When an architect is drawing up plans for a whole subdivision of beautiful and functional homes and there's blank space on the page, it's easier to fill it in with a generic lawn than to draw up garden plans.
It wasn't until a hundred years later in 1950s-60s America that suburbs took off. Amid civil unrest taking place in urban centers across post-war, post-depression America, the latest generation of homeowners were ready for a quiet life away from the city, but close enough to have the modern consumer conveniences. The American Dream had shifted from the homestead to a white picket fence around one of Olmsted's lawns. Having great curb appeal was how you kept up with the Joneses and a tight lawn became an expectation. More importantly, those homeowners raised the largest generation from the largest baby boom that this country had ever seen within that culture, ensuring that the shared hobby of lawns would persist.
The lawn became an American icon and a symbol of communal identity and pride. Generations later, lawn care is a billion-dollar industry and Americans still love their lawns.