crop rotation & plant taxonomy

The information online about crop rotation is not adequate. It doesn't take much account of perennials, green manures, herbs or other companion plants. And it doesn't usually use the proper botanical taxonomy, which you need if you're going on to Google Scholar to seek out research.

Family plants plants
Fabaceae pea winter field bean

mange tout alfalfa

french bean gorse

runner bean lupins

broad bean clover

So, for example, the family Fabaceae (in the table above) is usually referred to as "legumes" or the "pea family". And yes, we know that's peas and beans, but it also includes the gorse in the hedge and the lupins you might use in a fallow year.

So I've put together a spreadsheet with 13 plant families containing ALL of the plants which I'm likely to want to grow, (I might have to include other down the road, of course). Having done that, I then encountered another learning curve, namely, adding a table in blogger. I've only managed the crude job included here this evening, and I'll come back to this in due course with a table of all 13 families.

To be continued...

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