Exchange crops

This is how we plant our bulbs.

Because you can't plant the same crops on the same piece of land year after year, this season we planted part of our show garden with beautiful daffodils. We call this crop rotation, a smart way to keep the soil healthy and fertile.

Alternate cropping, also called crop rotation or crop rotation, involves growing different types of annual crops on the same piece of land every year. So where you grow tulips one year, for example, you plant daffodils the next year. And the year after that, something else.

The reason for switching crops every year is that you can avoid problems with pests and diseases and soil depletion.

But there is another important reason for crop rotation. The crops you grow one year make the soil more suitable for the crop you plant in that spot the following year. Some crops, for instance, feed the soil with extra nitrogen. And that benefits the other crops you plant here the following year. In this way, you increase the chances of a successful harvest.