[Homestead] Tomatoes, to rotate or not to rotate

Gene GeRue genegerue at ruralize.com
Fri May 2 12:01:39 EDT 2008


While doing the garden tour this morning I mentally revisited my  
ongoing experiment with tomatoes and the question of whether it is  
better to move them each year to where they have not grown for several  
years or whether to keep planting them in the same places. Tomatoes  
being the most popular home garden plant and being such a strong part  
of our diets, there has been over the decades much controversy on this  
subject. "Tomatoes love to grow where tomatoes have grown." "You must  
rotate tomatoes each year to stop disease."

I have had less disease in my tomatoes than my various neighbors,  
those from a quarter mile through the woods to ten miles by road  
although only two miles in a straight line. My finest hour was when a  
stream of neighbors whose crops had failed came at my invitation with  
buckets which they filled and took home. If there are tomato gods,  
they seem to like me. It may be that my relative remoteness is a  
factor, and that the winds favor me. There are lots of thick woods  
around my clearing that can catch various wind-borne pathogens.

I have experimented. I used most of a compost pile one year but some  
material remained. Out of this a forest of tomatoes sprang as weeds. I  
let them be and watched them. To harvest was to don tall rubber boots  
and wade in. They were magnificent. The next year I paused, then let  
them be. They repeated, with no help. Again the third year. I changed  
the garden design and do not know how succeeding years would have  
looked.

I have rotated from one bed to another for five years. Still there was  
leaf browning on the lower plant parts. It is my common practice to  
prune off low branches as the plants get taller. This minimizes the  
effect of dirt splash onto the lower leaves, which spreads leaf canker  
and blight. I have never had enough problems to overcome my resistance  
to using sprays.

Many hybrids have been selected for their disease resistance. That is  
one answer. But if the gardener wishes to become seed-sufficient,  
there must be a combination of careful selection and propagation  
experimentation, to see what works best in the individual garden.


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