13. Crop Rotation
At the end of the growing season, after finishing your harvest, it’s time to start the preparation for the coming spring season. Adjust your fertilizer levels to meet the required pH before winter arrives. This strategy gives the ground plenty of time to rest and recover from the growing season, replenishing the earth with nutrients. Should you follow this remineralizing strategy, you can expect bigger yields in the next season.
It’s essential that you rotate your crops every year, as certain plants take more nutrients from the soil than others. It’s vital that you avoid planting blackberries in areas of the garden where you have previously grown raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, eggplant, or peppers. These vegetables and fruits consume vast amounts of iron from the soil, and it may take an entire season to replenish levels of this mineral in the ground.
These crops remove iron from the soil, which is a significant problem for new plants, but they also leave behind Phytophthora, Verticillium, and nematodes – soil pathogens that may affect the root structure of your next blackberry crop.