Vegetable and Fruit Crop Production
Core concepts
Understand crop planning: rotation groups, sowing and planting dates, spacing, thinning, and successional sowing for continuous harvest. Know the difference between direct sowing and raising transplants. Learn the needs of major vegetable groups: brassicas, legumes, roots, onions, potatoes and salad crops. Legumes fix nitrogen through root nodules, so they benefit the following crop in a rotation.
For fruit, know the difference between top fruit (apples, pears), soft fruit (strawberries, raspberries, currants) and vines. Understand pollination requirements, pruning for shape and fruiting, thinning of fruit, and harvest maturity. Know that some fruit needs cross-pollination from a compatible partner cultivar.
Traps in questions
A common trap is planting the same crop family in the same bed each year, encouraging pests and diseases. Another is pruning at the wrong time; some fruit is pruned in winter, others after fruiting. Candidates also forget that legumes add nitrogen to the soil but still need other nutrients.
Worked example
A three-year rotation could run: brassicas, then legumes, then roots, returning to brassicas. Rule of thumb: rotate crop families, not individual crops, and keep records so the plan can be repeated.