Improving Soil Quality with Crop Rotation  

 Crop Rotation is another one of our three C's that we use to improve the soil quality on the farm. Crop rotation is an age old practice and the Romans, Greeks, and Chinese were all well aware of its benefits. Crop rotation is the practice of planting a different crop than the one before on the same piece of land. The ideal crop rotation would involve planting a crop from a different botanical family than the one that previously occupied that space, selecting a crop that does not require the same nutrients from the soil, and a crop that does not share the same pest or diseases. 

Rotations can also improve insect and disease control. By rotating the plants that these pests and diseases thrive on we can greatly decrease the pest populations and disease prone environments we can therefore decrease the need for any spraying. 

We can also use crop rotation to take advantage of the various nutrients in our soils. For Instance by rotating corn, beans, and squash you are utilizing crops that take different nutrients out of the soil. All of these crops also respond to diverse fertilization patterns and all may be affected by the preceding or succeeding crop.  Since some crops grow best when compost or manure is fresh while others utilize this nutrients after it has composted we can take advantage of this scenario and save time through crop rotation. Rotations can also preserve and improve soil structure. As you can imagine different crops have different root structures. Deeper rooting plants extract nutrients from layers of the soil not utilized by shallower rooters. Crop rotation has also been found to increase yields.  

Here at Serenbe Farms Paige and Justin have developed a 10 year crop rotation plan. This means that the tomatoes seen in the second picture below will not be planted in this same location for 10 years. This means we take advantage of all of these wonderful benefits and use yet again another strategy to improve our red clay soils. With so many benefits to crop rotation it is a wonder why so many farmers still practice monocropping.  

Field 4- Spring 2011 Brassicas

Field 4- Summer 2011 Buckwheat and Tomatoes

Tomatoes!

You all will be receiving some more delicious tomatoes this week. Tomatoes are a nutrtious fruit often mistaken as a vegetable and have many uses in the culinary world. The French botanist Tournefort, came up with the Latin botanical name, Locypersicon esculentum, for the tomato. It tranlates to "wolf peach". Wolf because the fruit was erroneously considered poisonous (although the leaves are poisonous) and peach because it resembles the shape of a peach. The English word tomato comes from the Spanish word tamatl.

The tomato is native to western South America and Central America. In 1519, Cortez discovered tomatoes growing in Montezuma's gardens and brought seed back to Europe where they were planted as ornamentals, but not eaten. Most likely these tomatoes were yellow in color, since in Spain and Italy they were known as pomi d'oro, meaning yellow apples. Italy was the first to embrace and cultivate the tomato outside of South America. The French referred to the tomato as pommes d'amour, or love apples, believing it to contain aphrodisiacal properties.

Fun Facts: The heaviest tomato on record weighed in at 3.51 kg (7 pounds 12 ounces). A "delicious" variety, it was grown by Gordon Graham of Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986. Gordon sliced the tomato to make sandwiches for 21 family members. 

The high acidic content of the tomato makes it great for canning, which is one of the reasons the tomato was canned more than any other fruit or vegetable by the end of the nineteenth century.   

Nutritional Facts:
One medium sized-tomato provides over a third of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C, and nearly a third of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A. Tomatoes are also a great source of fiber, carbohydrate, potassium and iron. Tomatoes are an outstanding source of the antioxidant lycopene, which has been shown to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. Tomatoes have low amounts of fat and sodium and are more than 90% water making them very diet-friendly. A tomato's vitamin C content increases as the fruit ripens. Vine-ripened tomatoes contain nearly twice the vitamin C and beta-carotene as their green-picked counterparts.  

Enjoy!

Ryan