Crop Rotation Planner

What this generator does

Assigns a plant family to every bed for every year, advancing each bed one position through the family order annually, so a family cannot return to a bed until the whole cycle has run.

How to use this tool

1. Set how many beds you have and how many years to plan.
2. Read across a year to see what goes where, and down a column to follow one bed.
3. Check that no bed sees the same family twice within the rotation.
4. Note where legumes are followed by brassicas — that pairing is worth keeping.

Understanding the controls

How many beds

Between 3 and 6. The bed count sets the rotation length: with four beds, a family returns every fourth year.

How many years

Between 3 and 6 years to plan ahead. Planning more years than beds simply repeats the cycle, which is what a rotation is.

Seed

Any word reproduces exactly the same families and the same plan.

Common use cases

• Planning an allotment or vegetable garden across several years
• Avoiding soil-borne disease building up in one bed
• Teaching why rotation matters and how the cycle length is chosen
• Producing a plan to pin up in a shed
• Setting the same rotation twice from a seed

How this generator works

A cyclic shift guarantees the rule by construction rather than by searching for it. The check does not rely on that: it walks every bed across every window of years and confirms no family appears twice, and separately confirms that no two beds grow the same family in the same year.

Randomness and fairness

Which families appear and in what order is random; the rotation itself is then fully determined. A seed reproduces the same plan exactly and is therefore explicitly not cryptographically secure. Without a seed the browser's cryptographically secure generator is used.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Limitations and good to know

• One family per bed per year. Interplanting and catch crops complicate rotation in ways this does not capture.
• Families are treated as interchangeable in the cycle, whereas some sequences genuinely suit each other better.
• Perennials — asparagus, rhubarb, soft fruit — do not rotate and need their own permanent bed.
• A longer rotation is better where disease is already present; the bed count sets the length here.
• Plans are not stored between visits; seed one you want again.

Privacy and your data

The rotation is computed on your own device, and nothing about it or your seed leaves the browser.