Stop 13  – Beets & Roots – Year 6

Root vegetables make up a staple part of our Autumn and Winter offerings.

These deep rooting crops are excellent at conditioning the soil structure. The taproots seek out nutrients down in the depths of the soil, which means they sometimes fork when they encounter a stone, and produce a “wonky” carrot. They slot in late in the rotation because they aren’t particularly hungry crops, and grow well after Alliums because their strong smell may help to ward off root-mining pests. Next year this will be planted up with Squashes and undersown with green manure to take us back to the fertility-building herbal ley. Walk on and you will see the next and final year of our field rotation.