What’s the plot for rotating my crops?

I want to rotate my crops. Where do I start?

William, Durham

DAViD: Begin by dividing your plot into sections and the crops into groups. Depending on what you grow, you might have something like potatoes, legumes and brassicas, and then rotate where they’re planted each year.

Take into consideration the best growing conditions for each, like brassicas needing lots of space.

When I’m talking about having thorny plants, I’m not talking about ugly things – I’m talking things of pure beauty.

Shrub roses for instance. These are very different from the normal hybrid tea or floribunda roses which are small bushes.

The shrub roses, on the other hand, grow to about 1.5 metres by 1.5 metres and are absolutely full of the most spectacular flowers, from singles to doubles, from whites to pinks to bright reds and multi-coloured, and many of them have heavenly scents but they also have a lot of thorns.

So planted in border areas of the garden where people are liable to jump over the fence, or in areas at the front of the garden where you don’t want people to step over, shrub roses are a pretty good deterrent. you have the delicious gooseberries themselves. These plants do particularly well in any flower border as a low thorny plant that produces flowers and, of course, fruit as well – perfect for gooseberry fool and pie, or even making a gooseberry preserve which is ideal to go along with strong cheddars. It’s gorgeous.

Another plant that works particularly well if you don’t want burglars