Vegetables
Crop rotation may sound overly scientific for the ordinary gardener, but it is an important way of getting the most from the vegetable garden and, at the same time, minimise the risk of diseases, such as clubroot in cabbages or basal rot (caused by Fusarium oxysporum) in onions, garlic and leeks.
Designed so crops take different minerals from the soil each year, good rotation will take account of chemical and physical differences between plants.
The basic rule is never to grow plants from the same family or type in the same spot two years in a row.
Leaving aside perennial vegetables, such as rhubarb, globe artichokes and asparagus, that stay in the same plot, divide your garden into three areas.
Make a list of what crops can be grouped: Potatoes, celery, leeks, carrots, parsnips and beetroot in one group; peas, beans (all types), onions and spinach in the second; and brassicas including brussels sprouts, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflowers and kohl rabi in the third.
Grow them by groups this coming season.
In the second season, grow tap-rooted plants (group one) in plot three, the ground previously used for brassicas.
Put potatoes and the onion family into area one and brassicas in the remaining part of the garden.
Year three sees brassicas in plot one, tap-rooted plants in bed two and onions, as well as potatoes in the third section.
Continue this practice in subsequent years.
A garden diary may make it easier to remember the movements or draw a computer-generated plan and mark what was sown or planted where, with planting or sowing dates.
If the weather is reasonably dry, dig any vacant ground roughly, but do not try to cultivate the ground too finely at this time of the year or it can set like concrete as it dries.
Flowers
Crop rotation in the flower garden is also possible with some varieties of plants.
Stocks and wallflowers in mass displays exhaust the soil in similar ways and should not follow each other.
Likewise, if dahlias are grown in the same soil year after year, they will make excessive demands on some soil elements and plant quality will eventually drop.
Herbaceous borders of perennial plants such as delphiniums can be replaced every two or three years.
Lift the plants, enrich the bed with compost and replace the plants some distance from their previous positions.
Ideally, dahlias, gladioli, pansies, violas, tulips , hyacinths and narcissi should be planted in different areas of the garden each year.
This moving around enables beds to be regularly dug and properly fertilised.
Fruit
Winter spraying of apples and pears with a winter oil spray will help control woolly aphids, scale insects and red spider.
If you prefer not to spray, attracting waxeyes to the garden by putting a shallow container of sugar water on or near fruit trees will encourage them to clean up bugs.
Good garden hygiene is also important in preventing or controlling disease.
Any fruit remaining on trees or on the ground through the winter may be a source of primary infection and should be removed.
Apple trees infested with woolly aphids and pears with scale insects or red spider should be given a winter oil spray.
Thoroughly cover all parts of the tree.
