Show Transcript

0:00Cover crops have been a big part of the crop rotation planning here at Bountiful Blessings Farm for many years. And so in this video, we're going to be talking

0:07about some of the tips and tricks for successfully doing cover crops. And we're at the end of August. September is

0:15often times when the cover crops are going in for overwintering plots that aren't getting utilized for winter production. So Dad, give us your tips and tricks for cover crop success.

0:28Well, I will say many market gardens uh don't do much cover cropping because they're just growing so intensively year

0:36round that it's hard to fit them in. And I think if that's the case, then you

0:43have to kind of get your cover crops already digested, so to speak, um with with putting on more compost. Mhm.

0:52But if you have the space and the time,

0:56cover cropping is is a cheap and easy way to build your your soil health. Um,

1:04September is the ideal time to do it. Of course, the challenge is September is also one of the driest months for us

1:13here. So, it means you're going to need irrigation in order to get them up and

1:18and going. But, um, ideally you get your your summer stuff cleared out and and

1:28get the soil in a good good place and then I always just broadcast with my chest spreader.

1:36Mhm.

1:36Um, and so it's just on the ground. You know, you can lose some of your seed to

1:43birds, but I found that I can get good germination just by broadcasting um with with plenty of irrigation.

1:54That's the key. You're you're going out there every day and looking at the seeds and you can see when the the root comes

2:02out when they first germinate and you're looking for them to peg that root down into the ground. And once the root is

2:11down into the ground, then the moisture level is not quite so critical. Mhm.

2:19But you got to keep it good and moist until that point. Um, if you don't have a lot of water and aren't able to

2:27irrigate so much, there are some tricks that you can do using silage tarp.

2:35um just seed your your cover crop and um wet it good, you know, however you need

2:43to do that. And then cover it with the silage tarp, but with the white side up so it's not heating the ground. You

2:52don't want to heat it too much. But you do that and you need to check every day to see what's going on under there. But as soon as you see them germinating,

3:04um, then you pull the cover off and you're up and running. Yeah. And that of course keeps the birds off, too.

3:11Yeah. Let's go back for a second and just talk briefly for those that may be not as familiar with cover crops. Like

3:18um what's the point of cover crops? Why are you doing cover crops? And then uh and then second, what are the most

3:26common types of cover crops like varieties that that you're using? I mean, there's so many reasons for cover cropping. One is just to hold the soil.

3:37You know, if you have any kind of slope.

3:40Yeah. I just hate seeing bare soil in the winter time. Um because, you know,

3:46you're going to lose it. Uh but of course if you have the snow cover or something that's different but anyway

3:54covering the soil keeping it um biologically active you know living roots in the soil is one of the big

4:02mantras of regenerative agriculture. Um as long as you have living roots in the soil they're going to be feeding the

4:10biology and so you're keeping that healthy.

4:15You're adding organic matter. Um, you're holding nutrients, keeping them from being leeched off by by take being taken up by the cover crops.

4:26Um, you're breaking up the soil if it's compacted.

4:32I don't know. I the list goes on. I wasn't prepared to get into all of that, but yeah, there's lots of benefits.

4:41Yeah. Okay. And then what what are the most common crops that you're using for your cover cropping?

4:47Yeah, so the the current um understanding of

4:53cover cropping is that the the more variety of species you put in your cover

5:01crop, the better. And I will give you a name. Green Cover Seeds is a great

5:08company, Christian company that does blends and they do they sell to huge, you know,

5:18big scale farmers, but they also sell in small sizes for home gardeners or market

5:25gardeners. So, a great company to deal with. They've got, you know, winter blends, they've got warm weather blends.

5:33Um, plus you can you can have your own custom blend, which is really neat. I did that last winter because we don't

5:43like to use brasacas much in cover crops cuz we use brasacas

5:49so much elsewise and we found we were encouraging things like harlkan

5:56bugs to stay around too much by having them in the cover crops. So anyway, we took those out of the cover crop. Um,

6:06but I will say this, you can, you know,

6:10you can go to the local co-op and and just make your own blend. And ideally,

6:17you always want to combine at least one legume with one grain or grass.

6:27So, some classic combinations that we have come up with over the years, and it it's all dependent on when you're going

6:36to need your plot in the spring, but um spring oats, and you need to get spring

6:43oats, not winter oats. And um winter peas is the most um

6:51well, they in most winters here, they will winter kill.

6:56Okay? And so if you're trying to get in there early in the spring, do something like spring oats and and winter peas. If

7:06you are are wanting something that'll go a little longer, wheat and crimson clover is a good combination for us.

7:16Um, and these combinations are about time of maturity. So wheat and crimson clover mature are, you know, they're

7:26ready to be turned under at a similar time. And then rye and hairy veetch or

7:33um this last year we did some leino clover um or ladino. I'm not sure how they say it with the rye.

7:42With the rye and that that matured later. That's the latest maturing one.

7:48And are are you doing for those? It was two different varieties on all those. Are you doing like 50/50?

7:54No, cuz you know, I mean, like the grains are much bigger. So, by weight,

8:01you're going to have a lot more grain. The clovers are are very tiny. Okay. So, you know, for a market garden plot,

8:09you only need a few, you know, a pound or two.

8:12So, how do you calculate the the mix? Um there's a great book that's actually

8:18available online um you know as a as a electronic book or you can get a hard

8:26copy called growing cover crops profit or managing cover crops profitably. Okay.

8:33And that gives you all the seeding rates. They've got charts and um yeah, or you know, if you go to the co-op,

8:41they can tell you recommended seating rates for different ones.

8:46Okay. So, you would basically go off of the seating rate per acre or whatever.

8:50Yeah. And just divide it by calculate do the calculations. Okay.

8:54Cool. All right. And then what's your favorite method for terminating cover crops and and reintegrating all that biomass into the soil?

9:04Yeah, that's a good question that you know it a lot depends on what you're doing next. But what we've been doing

9:11recently is um flail mowing them and then tarping

9:19them and we really like that with silage tarp because that kills everything if there's

9:26any weeds or anything. And when you take the tarp off, you're left with a nice mulch. Mhm.

9:34But I will say I would really highly discourage people

9:40from just planting directly into mulch because from from my experience that mulch will

9:50will keep the weeds down for about a month and then the weeds take over and you have no way of dealing with them. So, you're saying,

9:59just to make sure people understand, a lot of people with like a no till method would just either use a crimper or something to knock the cover crop down

10:08and then go ahead and just plant basically directly into that mass of cover crop that is across the top of

10:15your soil. And it keeps this the weeds at bay for a month. But then after that,

10:20the weeds start coming up and it's almost impossible to do any kind of cultivation because you just can't have all of that biomass that's not been integrated into the soil.

10:31It's been a disaster for us. So that's where we use the quick plant fabric and

10:38put that down. And so that keeps any weeds from from coming up and then we just plant in the holes. Cool.

10:48So, that's worked really well for us. So, flail mower works great. I mean,

10:52that's probably the best way because it really chops it up.

10:55Or you can There are ways to crimp it by hand using a Tpost and Yeah. couple people with a tost just

11:04kind of stepping on it strapped to their foot. Yeah. Yeah.

11:07It's a pretty rudimentary, but it gets the job done.

11:12Yeah. So, all right. Well, hopefully this has given you some valuable and helpful information for planting some cover crops. And if you have questions

11:21that you would like us to address in a future video, feel free to reply back to this email or or comment down below and maybe we'll get to it in a future video.

11:31Until next time, happy growing.

Crop Rotation for Market Farmers: A Practical Guide to Healthier Soil and Better Harvests

By Jonathan Dysinger and John Dysinger

Updated on

Crop rotation is the practice of changing which crop family you grow in a given bed from one planting to the next. For small-scale market farmers, the simplest effective rule is to always follow a soil-depleting ("detrimental") crop with a soil-building ("beneficial") one — and for winter growers, that usually means alternating with lettuce.

When you're running a small-scale market farm, the list of things demanding your attention never seems to end. Bed prep, seeding schedules, harvest logistics, customer relationships — the mental load is real.

So when someone tells you to add crop rotation planning to the mix, it's tempting to push it down the priority list.

But here's the thing: crop rotation might be the single most impactful practice you can adopt on your small farm. Not the most glamorous, not the most exciting — but arguably the most important for the long-term health of your soil and the quality of your harvests.

In a recent video conversation, my dad, John Dysinger — owner of Bountiful Blessings Farm with 27 years of market farming experience — and I sat down to talk through how he approaches crop rotation. I grew up working alongside him, and crop rotation was one of those things that was always part of the rhythm of the farm. Below, I'm sharing the key insights from our conversation so you can apply the same principles to your operation without overcomplicating things.

What Is Crop Rotation and Why Does It Matter?

Crop rotation is the practice of not growing the same crop family in the same bed over and over again. Instead, you alternate between different plant families so the soil isn't repeatedly asked to give up the same nutrients.

When you plant the same crop family in the same bed season after season, you're drawing the same nutrients from the soil repeatedly, creating the perfect environment for pests and diseases to establish themselves, and degrading your soil structure over time.

Rotate your crops thoughtfully, and you break those cycles. Your soil stays healthier. Your plants grow stronger. And you spend less time and money trying to fix problems that good rotation would have prevented.

As my dad puts it, the goal is to "mix crops up as much as possible." That's really the guiding principle. You don't need a PhD in agronomy to make crop rotation work for you — you just need a basic understanding of plant families and a willingness to keep simple records.

The Resource You Need on Your Shelf

If you want to go deep on crop rotation, my dad recommends one book above all others: Eliot Coleman's The New Organic Grower. According to him, Coleman has written the definitive chapter on crop rotation, and nearly every other author writing on the topic references his work.

Coleman lays out the botanical families, explains which crops leave the soil better or worse than they found it, and provides a framework you can adapt to your own farm. It's an essential read for any market farmer serious about soil health. My dad has used Coleman's framework as his foundation for over two decades of year-round production, and it's still the first book he recommends to new growers.

What Are "Beneficial" and "Detrimental" Crop Families?

One of the most practical concepts from Coleman's work — and one that my dad applies daily on his farm — is the classification of crop families as either beneficial or detrimental.

This doesn't mean "detrimental" crops are bad or that you shouldn't grow them. It simply describes their relationship with the soil.

Beneficial crops leave the soil in better condition than they found it. They tend to add organic matter, fix nitrogen, or otherwise improve soil structure.

Detrimental crops draw more heavily from the soil, leaving it in need of replenishment after harvest.

Here's where it gets interesting — and a little challenging — for winter growers. During the cold months, most market farmers are working with just four or five crop families:

Apiaceae — carrots, celery, parsley, parsnips Asteraceae — lettuces Brassicaceae — brassicas, Asian greens Chenopodiaceae — spinach, Swiss chard, beets Liliaceae* — alliums like bunching onions and scallions (in smaller quantities)

Of these winter families, only Asteraceae (your lettuces) is classified as beneficial. The rest are considered detrimental. This means that every time you pull a bed of spinach or brassicas, the soil is a little more depleted than before.

The silver lining? Lettuce is almost certainly your highest-volume winter crop. So your most-planted crop is also the one that's kindest to your soil.

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The Simple Rotation Rule That Works

Given the constraints of winter growing, my dad follows a straightforward principle on his farm:

Always follow a detrimental crop with a beneficial one.

Pulled a bed of spinach? Plant lettuce next. Just harvested brassicas? Lettuce goes in.

It's not an elaborate rotation plan with color-coded spreadsheets and multi-year projections. It's a practical, workable system that keeps your soil from being drained by the same crop family back-to-back. My dad has been refining this approach across 27 growing seasons, and the simplicity is what makes it stick — especially in the middle of a hectic winter harvest week when you've got 200 heads of lettuce to cut and three beds to replant before sundown.

In summer, rotation gets easier. You have more beneficial crop families to work with — beans, cucurbits, and others join the mix, giving you more flexibility to rotate effectively.

How to Keep Track Without Losing Your Mind

You don't need fancy software to manage crop rotation. On Bountiful Blessings Farm, my dad keeps a simple tracking sheet that records what was grown in each bed for the current season.

The key information to track for each bed is what was grown there for the last two or three successions. That's it. When it's time to plant, you glance at the sheet, see what was there before, and make sure you're not repeating the same family.

For the greenhouses and outdoor plots, he maintains a general master rotation plan for the season. But within that framework, he stays flexible. If a bed just had lettuce, brassicas go in next. If it just had brassicas, lettuce goes in.

It's a blend of planning and real-time decision-making — and it works.

Summer vs. Winter: Two Different Rotation Challenges

One of the key takeaways from our conversation is that winter and summer present very different rotation challenges.

Winter is the tough season. With only a handful of crop families in play — and most of them classified as detrimental — you have to be intentional about alternating with lettuce and replenishing your soil between plantings.

Summer opens up your options significantly. Beneficial families like legumes (beans) and cucurbits (squash, cucumbers) enter the rotation, making it much easier to mix things up and give your soil a break.

If you're growing year-round, this seasonal shift is actually an advantage. The summer diversity helps offset the winter limitations, as long as you're paying attention to what goes where.

Don't Forget to Replenish

Crop rotation is a powerful tool, but it's not the only one in your soil health toolkit. When you do grow detrimental crops, you need to actively replenish the soil afterward.

That might mean adding compost, applying amendments, or using silage tarps between plantings to encourage decomposition and worm activity that naturally rebuilds soil health.

The point is that rotation and soil building work together. Rotation prevents you from making the problem worse. Active soil replenishment makes things better.

Frequently Asked Questions

Ideally, you should rotate after every planting — never putting the same crop family in the same bed back-to-back. At minimum, track your last two or three successions per bed and make sure you're alternating families each time.

Beneficial crops leave the soil in better condition than they found it by adding organic matter or fixing nitrogen. Detrimental crops draw more heavily from the soil, depleting nutrients and leaving the bed in need of replenishment. The terms come from Eliot Coleman's The New Organic Grower and describe a crop family's net effect on soil health, not whether the crop is worth growing.

Follow every detrimental crop with a beneficial one. For winter growers, this usually means alternating with lettuce (the only beneficial winter crop family) after pulling spinach, brassicas, carrots, or other detrimental families. It's simple enough to stick with during your busiest weeks.

During winter, most market farmers are limited to just four or five crop families — and only one of them (lettuce) is classified as beneficial. In summer, you have many more beneficial families like legumes and cucurbits to work with, which makes rotating much easier.

No. A simple paper tracking sheet that records the last two or three crops in each bed works well. The key is having something you'll actually use during the busiest parts of the season. At Bountiful Blessings Farm, a basic handwritten sheet has been the system for over 27 years.

Eliot Coleman's The New Organic Grower is widely considered the definitive resource. Coleman lays out the botanical families, classifies them as beneficial or detrimental, and provides a rotation framework you can adapt to any scale. Nearly every other author writing on the topic references his work.

The Takeaway

Crop rotation doesn't have to be complicated to be effective. For most beginning market farmers, the key principles are simple:

Track what you grow in each bed. Follow detrimental crops with beneficial ones. Give your soil what it needs between plantings. And pick up a copy of Eliot Coleman's The New Organic Grower — it's the best investment you'll make in understanding how rotation works on a small farm.

Your soil is the foundation of everything you grow. Take care of it, and it will take care of you.

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