The answer to your question is it depends on why your roating. Is it to prevent soilborne disease or to prevent depletion of nutrients.

I don't have it handy at the moment but I believe you will find that toms should not be near or follow Potatoes, Peppers, Eggplant, or any of the broccoli/brussel/cabbage/califlower type plants.

Many sources will rec a 3,4 or even more yr. rotation.

Many folks don't or can't follow this.

I'll see if I can dig up my fav but here is a very long paper referencing the benefits of rotaion a mutitude of times.

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/tomato.html#crop

Unfortunately, my favorite source on the subject is now a dead link and I haven't found its replacement.

Further, I know many don't rotate, some wish they could, some think it is irrelevant at a small site or that heavy use of composting negates the need. I was raised in a family that very definately built the soil but we always rotated too but then, we had large gardens at multiple sites.

The simplest form that even some smaller sites should be able to accommodate is to avoid planting the same crop, or family in the same spot successively and perhaps using a green manuer crop in the off season.

Beyond that, reading last eve and this a.m. has brought as usual, some general consensus but also conflicting info.

I think its worth the trouble to try but do understand that some just do not have the space or interest in other crops.

A web search of "tomato rotation" yields many articles for you to decide for yourself.

http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/pests/plant_pests/veg_fruit/hgic2217.html

http://www.geocities.com/green_cache/tomatoes.html#CROP_ROTATION_IN_TOMATO_PLANTS_

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/tomato.html#crop

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/NewsArticles/McNabRotations.htm

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r783900611.html

http://www.helpfulgardener.com/organic/2006/crop.html

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/crop-rotation.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_4748139_crop-rotation-plan.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art

http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/organiccrop/tools2.html

http://www.tinkersgardens.com/vegetables/croprotation.asp

http://www.thevegetablepatch.com/rotation.htm

Personally, since toms are my most beloved crop and because the deer and coons get all of any corn planted, toms follow the various legumes that we like and everything else follows them. Due to easy crossing, melons and squash are separated by as much distance as feasible and rotated seperately. I don't care for peppers or eggplant enough to grow them and even though there is little better in the world than freshly dug new potatoes, they are too cheap for the space they take. Greens and some companion plantings are intersperced.

I know we have market growers here. What do you guys do?

hi daylilyfan,
i read somewhere not to plant strawberries after tomatoes and was wondering if tomatoes would not be happy going in after broccoli for whatever reason.

dave,
thanks for all the great info. i'll take a look through those links. i only have 2 beds right now but eventually plan to have 4. i found a good site that has a rotation schedule for 4 beds here.
http://www.yankeegardener.com/resource/croprotate.html

funny, the rotation on there looks much like what we had planned anyway. :) of course i'm planning on adding some steer manure and some of our own composted chicken manure to the bed before planting.

I was just reading some other literature, and thought I would provide some insight based on what I now know. Both strawberries and tomatoes are susceptible to veriticulum wilt fungus. Growing those crops in succession allow verticulum wilt to build up in the soil even more. That's why they're not recommended to follow each other.

On the other hand, cole crops like broccoli are not only immune to veriticulum wilt, but has chemical components that act as a fungicide (it kills it!) If you take the unused parts of the broccoli plant, shred it, then incorporate it back into the soil as a green manure, the amount of veriticulum wilt will be reduced.

Therefore, tomatoes can follow broccoli just fine.