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Crop rotation The principle of crop rotation is to grow specific groups of vegetables on a different part of the vegetable plot each year. This helps to reduce a build-up of crop-specific pest and disease problems and it organises groups of crops according to their cultivation needs.

By The RHS Advice Team

19 Dec, 2025

RHS Advice Guides

• Quick facts
• Suitable for...
• Benefits of crop rotation
• How to do crop rotation
• How to do a four-year rotation
• See also

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Quick facts

Suitable for - All but very small vegetable gardens

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Timing - Plan before the growing season, when ordering seed

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Difficulty - Easy

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Suitable for...

Crop rotation is used in allotment plots and kitchen gardens for most annual vegetable crops. Perennial vegetables (such as rhubarb and asparagus) do not fit into the rotation. Certain annual crops such as cucurbits (courgettes, pumpkins, squashes, marrows and cucumbers), salads (endive, lettuce and chicory) and sweetcorn can be grown wherever convenient, merely avoiding growing them too often in the same place.

Plan your crop rotation before the growing season starts, and mark out the plots on the ground so you know where to plant each crop.

Benefits of crop rotation

Soil fertility: Different crops have different nutrient requirements. Changing crops annually reduces the chance of particular soil deficiencies developing as the balance of nutrients removed from the soil tends to even out over time.

Weed control: Some crops, like potatoes and squashes, with dense foliage or large leaves, suppress weeds, thus reducing maintenance and weed problems in following crops.

Pest and disease control: Soil pests and diseases tend to attack specific plant families over and over again. By rotating crops between sites the pests tend to decline in the period when their host plants are absent which helps reduce build-up of damaging populations of spores, eggs and pests. Common diseases that can be helped avoided by rotation include clubroot in brassicas and onion white rot.

How to do crop rotation

Divide your vegetable garden or allotment into sections of equal size (depending on how much of each crop you want to grow), plus an extra section for perennial crops, such as rhubarb and asparagus. Group your crops as below:

• Brassicas:Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, kohl-rabi, oriental greens, radish, swede and turnips
• Legumes:Peas, broad beans, French and runner beans
• Onions:Onion, garlic, shallot, leek
• Potato family:Potato, tomato, (pepper and aubergine suffer from fewer problems and can be grown anywhere in the rotation)
• Roots:Beetroot, carrot, celeriac, celery, Florence fennel, parsley, parsnip and all other root crops, except swedes and turnips, which are brassicas

Move each section of the plot a step forward every year so that, for example, brassicas follow legumes, onions and roots, legumes, onions and roots follow potatoes and potatoes follow brassicas. Here is a traditional three year rotation plan where potatoes and brassicas are important crops:

Year oneSection one: PotatoesSection two: Legumes, onions and rootsSection three: Brassicas

Year twoSection one: Legumes, onions and rootsSection two: BrassicasSection three: Potatoes

Year threeSection one: BrassicasSection two: PotatoesSection three: Legumes, onions and roots

How to do a four-year rotation

This is a four-year rotation for where potatoes and brassicas are not as important, but more legumes (which take up a lot of space) and onion-type crops are required:

Year oneSection one: LegumesSection two: BrassicasSection three: PotatoesSection four: Onions and roots

Year twoSection one: BrassicasSection two: PotatoesSection three: Onions and rootsSection four: Legumes

Year threeSection one: PotatoesSection two: Onions and rootsSection three: LegumesSection four: Brassicas

Year fourSection one: Onions and rootsSection two: LegumesSection three: BrassicasSection four: Potatoes

See also

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