Garlic is a universal and susceptible crop that makes one think it can grow with just any other crop. There are plants that take their nutrients from the soil and different plants take out different nutrients thus the need for crop rotation. It is not recommended to grow garlic in areas close to your kitchen gardens.

Garlic prefers cooler temperatures during the preliminary stages to assist with the vegetative growth but for the bulb high temperatures is required, for this reason crops such as carrots, tomatoes, and potatoes are grown after, as garlic also acts as their natural pest-repellant. Pepper can also be planted after harvesting your garlic.

It is important to rotate garlic with these crops, just like any other crop, the process helps the soil recover and retain useful nutrients i.e. potash, potassium and nitrogen.

These crops rely on nitrogen for growth, however garlic only uses medium amount of nitrogen which means it is possible to rotate it with a crop such as tomatoes that is a heavy growth. Despite garlic not relying on large amounts of these nutrients meaning that the soil will be relatively healthy after one season, but it is crucial to rotate it with another crops.

Garlic like any other crop, attracts certain diseases and bugs into the soil which can be bad for the plant it is advisable to rotate it in the same bed or plant in another bed. Potatoes and tomatoes are not amenable to these bugs and diseases thus best for ‘rotation’.

Legumes are affected by these diseases and cannot be grown after garlic. These specific legumes are beans and peas, also asparagus and lettuce should be avoided. For asparagus, the diseases that garlic can attract, causes stunted growth and they also compete for the same nutrients, for this, asparagus will suffer most as it’s the weaker plant. Garlic produces chemicals that causes the lettuce to wilt while still in the ground.

If the same crop is planted in the same piece of land continuously the soil will eventually become depleted of its nutrients and that crop will no longer grow.  Planting a different crop every second or third year gives the soil enough time to recover nutrients necessary to grow each crop.

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