doing things better

I'm trying to do better at some things I've know about for a while but not followed. Such as covering my compost. It's been nice, actually, to go out after days and days of rain the ground is all saturated and the lawn squelchy but if I lift up the tarp my compost is nice, dry and crumbly, ready to use.

Another thing is being more particular about rotating my plants each year. I've been keeping drawings every year, a map of where each thing is planted. But the best I did was to make sure nothing was planted in the same place again, for at least two or three years before going back in that spot.

I read in a book recently that you should also pay attention to which plants follow which. Not only because you want to keep plants in the same family from growing in the same space again, but because some do better or worse following others, due to the nutrients they use or the diseases they're susceptible to.

Surprisingly, I couldn't find this information online. Anywhere you look points out learning what families your veggies are in, to have good rotation- I couldn't find a chart I wanted, that told me which plants favor others. I did print out a plant-family list, which taught me a few things I didn't know- such as that spinach is related to swiss chard, lettuce is in the sunflower family, and kale with broccoli (I knew potatoes and tomatoes were related, same with carrots and parsley, also chard and beets).

So now I'm looking for that book again, to copy the rotation chart and plan my garden better for next year.