Allotment
How to plan crop rotation on an allotment
The short answer
Divide the plot into three or four areas and move each crop family on every year: peas and beans, then brassicas, then potatoes, then onions and roots. It keeps soil problems from building up. Courgettes, squash, salads and sweetcorn can go wherever there is room; rhubarb and asparagus need a permanent bed.
Crop rotation is simple to understand and hard to keep up. This is what it is for, what it can and can't do, and how to keep track of it from one year to the next.
Why rotate at all
Some pests and diseases live in the soil and attack one family of plants. Grow that family in the same place year after year and they build up. Move it on and they have less to feed on. The ones that matter most on a UK plot:
| Family | Main problem | How long it can last | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cabbage family (including radish, swede, turnip) | Clubroot | Up to 20 years | RHS |
| Onion family | White rot | At least 15 years | RHS |
| Potato and tomato family | Potato cyst nematode (eelworm) | Up to 10 years | RHS |
| Carrot family | Carrot fly (overwinters in soil), violet root rot | Violet root rot: several years | RHS, AHDB |
The other reason is nitrogen. The RHS advises leaving pea and bean roots in the soil when you clear them, and its plans put brassicas after them. After a crop grown for its pods the gain is modest (Garden Organic), so it helps rather than replaces feeding.
The four-bed rotation
Peas and beans
Peas, broad beans, French and runner beans
Leave the roots in when you clear them (RHS). Brassicas follow.
Brassicas
Cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kohl rabi, oriental greens, radish, swede, turnips
Clubroot is the reason this group moves. Liming acid soil is part of the RHS advice.
Potatoes
Potatoes and tomatoes (peppers and aubergines can go anywhere)
Eelworm is the reason. Lift every tuber so blight doesn’t carry over.
Onions and roots
Onions, garlic, shallots, leeks; beetroot, carrots, parsnips, celeriac, celery, parsley
White rot for the onion family; carrot fly for the carrot family.
| Year | Bed A | Bed B | Bed C | Bed D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | Peas and beans | Brassicas | Potatoes | Onions and roots |
| Year 2 | Brassicas | Potatoes | Onions and roots | Peas and beans |
| Year 3 | Potatoes | Onions and roots | Peas and beans | Brassicas |
| Year 4 | Onions and roots | Peas and beans | Brassicas | Potatoes |
Three areas instead of four? See the three and four bed plans, laid out side by side.
Rotate by family, not by what you eat
The groups follow plant families, and some crops are not where you would expect. Radish, swede and turnip are brassicas, not roots. Beetroot is in the beet and chard family. Chives and leeks are onions. Tomatoes go with potatoes. The plant families guide lists them all.
Crops that sit outside the rotation
The RHS says cucurbits, salads and sweetcorn can be grown wherever convenient, merely avoiding growing them too often in the same place. Perennials such as rhubarb and asparagus need their own permanent bed.
- Courgettes
- Pumpkins and squash
- Cucumbers
- Sweetcorn
- Lettuce
- Endive and chicory
Radishes used to appear on this page's “grow anywhere” list. They are brassicas, so they belong with the cabbages.
What rotation can't do
It isn’t a cure
Clubroot and white rot outlast any rotation once they are in a bed. The RHS calls rotation impractical for white rot once present.It doesn’t stop airborne disease
Most garden blight arrives on the wind from other plots (RHS). Rotation doesn’t change that.It won’t fix poor soil
Legumes add a little nitrogen. Compost and feeding still matter.It doesn’t survive a lost notebook
The plan only works if you know what grew where. That is the hard part.
The biggest challenge: remembering what grew where
Most rotations fail on memory, not understanding. By November it is hard to be sure which bed had the brassicas, and in two years it is harder still.
Vercro keeps a record of what grew in each bed as you use it. When you plan a bed, it checks the family that grew there within about a year and can name a free bed where that family hasn't grown, so you are working from records rather than a fading memory. It won't plan next year's rotation for you. The free rotation checker runs the same check for one crop.
A year of records, not a three-year chart
Vercro's check looks back about a year. It doesn't claim a multi-year memory it doesn't have yet.
Frequently asked questions
Keep going
Where this comes from
Crop windows, growing times and plant families come from Vercro's own curated crop catalogue, the same data the Vercro app uses. Where a published source says something different, we show both rather than choosing the convenient one. Reviewed 19 September 2026.
- Crop rotation, Royal Horticultural Society. Read 19 September 2026.
- Club root, Royal Horticultural Society. Read 19 September 2026.
- Onion white rot, Royal Horticultural Society. Read 19 September 2026.
- Potato cyst nematodes, Royal Horticultural Society. Read 19 September 2026.
- Potato and tomato blight, Royal Horticultural Society. Read 19 September 2026.
- Carrot fly, Royal Horticultural Society. Read 19 September 2026.
- Violet root rot, AHDB. Read 19 September 2026.
- Peas: grow your own, Royal Horticultural Society. Read 19 September 2026.
- Field beans (green manure), Garden Organic. Read 19 September 2026.
Keep a record of what grew where
Vercro keeps each bed's history, so when you plan your rotation you are working from what happened, not memory. It doesn't plan the rotation for you.