tomato rotation

[bigpepperplant]

Do people normally follow their early potatoes with tomatoes? I'm trying to work out a rotation plan for next year and have allocated one 'potato group' bed (one legumes, one roots/alliums and one 'others') and am stuck as to how to fit in 1st earlies and tomatoes without breaking the rotation. Is it me or is getting your head round rotation a nightmare? All the books seem to say different things...

[oldherbaceous]

Bigpepperplant, i personally don't think it is that necessary to run a strict rotation scheme every year.
As long as your ground is kept well fed and in good condition most plants won't mind growing in the same ground for a couple of years.
Of course this depends whether or not you get any disease, in which case it pays to rotate that crop.
One thing i always try and do is feed the ground after each crop is cleared.

Now we can just sit back and see who runs a strict rotation scheme, i'm sure they will let us know.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

[Tigger]

Hmmnnn. IO don't know whether I could honestly say my rotation sheme is strict, 'cos I usually end up codging it, but there is a master plan.

Each year I draw up a plan of the raised beds and the tunnel beds and work out what's going to go where, based on the recordds from previous years. I always start off full of good intentions, but end up compromising the master plan somewhere around July when I find I've grown too much (as usual).

[Chantal]

Tigger, have you been copying MY master plan AGAIN?

I have my allotment plan on an excel spreadsheet with a new one for each year so I can look back at crop rotation when my aging memory fails.

However, as Tigger says, the best laid plans usually come to naught and something is always stuffed into the wrong place.

I think as long as you have healthy soil and healthy plants the odd mishap of something in the wrong place is no bid deal. Some of the old timers on our site have permanent bean structures, onion patches and potato beds with no obvious ill effects.

[Johnboy]

Hi BPP,
I feel that the longer you can keep from repeating Potatoes and Brassicas the better but apart from anything else I ceased to worry donkey's years ago.
I have been growing Beans in the same bed for at least 15 years and I have had no difficulties whatsoever. Shallots are likewise. However I feel that with Potatoes pests can build up in the soil and may be detrimental and there is always the fear of Club Root with Brassicas.
I grow Tomatoes in the Greenhouse border and this is their third year with no problems. Prior to that I have grown in very large pots in the tunnels.
(The greenhouse is three years old.)
I have always in the past followed my early Potatoes with Leeks mainly because the ground has been well disturbed and this makes easy growing for the Leeks.
I think if you keep the fertility up in the soil, as OH says, I shouldn't worry too much.
JB.

[Primrose]

I think that many of us just have to make the best of a bad job if we have limited space. My veggie patch gets too much shade for growing climbing beans and tomatoes so I grow these along a long south facing border, with half the border used for beans, and the other half for tomatoes. I alternate them every year which is about the best I can do to prevent the build-up of disease and I keep the soil very well manured. Apart from two successive years when all my tomatoes (and everybody else's in the area were struck by blight) I've adopted this technique for over 20 years and it has worked successfully. I think the secret is to keep the soil healthily manured, which seems to help the plants develop immunity to many of the day to day problem.

[Weed]

Thanks heavens I am not alone....I try hard to stick to a strict rotation plan then I find I have a load of plants and no where to put them.... so I quickly move on to plan G

I put up a permanent bean pole structure last winter and at the present time I have a large trench where the beans have been and into this I am putting all my compost material....this will be filled in a little later to overwinter.

[Allan]

There are good reasons for keeping runner beans in the same place, the nitrogen-fixing bacteria take time to build up in fresh soil si better to use soil where they may already be present.If you already have last years trenching that must be an advantage.
Many people have only one site where they fit in anyway.
Radish are often treated as a catch-crup, my experience is that they must have a good humus-rich soil with enough moisture or they won't be fit to eat so it's no good putting them on top of the soil dug out of the celery trench and forgetting about them.
Allan

[richard p]

if theres a choice i try not to plant the same thing in the same spot 2 years running, but after the main planting out is done in early summer its a case of finding a space somewhere. it sometimes comes down to its got to go in the only space availabe and take its chances or end up on the compost heap .

[bigpepperplant]

thanks for all your replies. What a relief!! I'll avoid repeating potatoes and brassicas but otherwise not get too worried about it.

[jane E]

You need also to watch onions for white rot. Then don't replant for many years in that spot. Just use common sense and be disease aware.

[Mike Vogel]

Well, Bigpepperplant, as I recall, the book I have on Organic Gardening [Joy Larkcom's] actually recommends tomatoes after early spuds. I don't do this simply because that plot is earmarked for garlic and I don't have the time that time of year to cut down the toms, prepare the soil AND plant the garlic. So I sow green manure for te rest of the summer. I'm also fortunate to have enough space to grow toms elsewhere.

Although toms and spuds are of the same family, the diseases and pests to be avoided tend to develop in the main summer period, and so attack maincrop rather than early spuds. That's why the toms can safely go in; they'll enjoy the good stuff that has gone in to help the spuds.

best wishes
mike