Sure, that could be why.

But have you considered that this year's weather is different?

Jean001a I have considered the weather, my other tomato and cucumber plants are much better in the different part of the garden where strawberries used to grow for 5 years.

The advantages of crop rotation, and even working in a fallow year, cannot be over-stated.

As mentioned. it helps to learn the basics of plant families so that crops can be sufficiently protected from disease and pests. You don't need to take a class or anything, just try to be aware of which plants are related.

Different crops use different amounts and types of nutrients. Crop rotation is the most efficient way to manage a healthy, balanced, and productive soil. Of course, for the backyard gardener, space is an issue. If this is a problem for anyone, sometimes multiple, smaller, individual beds can help.

After preparing a bed, wash your tools and machinery... including disinfecting the working parts. It won't help to rotate if you take your tiller straight from the old (possibly infected) tomato bed to the future tomato bed. Pathogens can be easily spread. Have a water hose with a strong stream, a brush, and a spray bottle with a disinfecting bleach mixture ready. Wash, spray, let it dry.

Some diseases can survive in soils for years. They can be kept alive, and propagate themselves on weeds and plant debris.

A fallow year, perhaps using the bed as that year's compost pile, using a cover crop, or simply mulching it deep with breathable organic matter, can allow microbes to restore soil structures. For extreme pathogen issues, a year of solarization can be beneficial.

Rotation is an easy tool to apply, but it does require a little forethought and preparation. Planning to make it part of a gardening strategy will help any grower. It can be difficult for the backyard gardener, but with consideration, smaller individual beds, and with good sanitation practices, it can be utilized successfully.

ipynda: crop rotation is basic, as I was taught at elementary school in about 1943, when gardening was on the curiculum. It's principally about disease. Many diseases are soil-borne, most are host-specific, and their promoters are always there in the soil but in small, harmless quantities. Every time you grow their favourirte food, their poulations will explode - consider x 100 by way of illustration. All is well if you move their favorite food next year and their population returns to safe levels. But if you grow the same crop again their popualtiuon wil now explode by another x 100, to 10,000, and that's asking for trouble. That said, I'm aware of growers who have grown tomatoes successfully in the same soil for years, and there's that famous field in England where wheat has been growing contiuouskly for well over 100 years. But none-the-less I recommend being guided by the theory. Regards, Peter.

Thank you all, I knew about the importance but ignored it I will seed buckwheat in those spaces, and let the soil rest for a year!

In my region, serious vegetable gardeners fallow or cover crop their gardens three years on and three years off, alternating between two plots. Rotation isn't nearly as effective. All that tender-loving-care we give to the veggies is also enjoyed by many soil-dwelling nasties. What is required is a summer drought to bake the soil dry and hard and get bring the pest population down.

A basic premise of Organic Growing is that the soil is the most important part of the equation, you cannot grow strong and healthy plants if the soil is not good and healthy. A good healthy soil is one that is well endowed with organic matter that is evenly moist but drains well and has the pH range the plants growing in that soil need and balanced nutrient levels.

The theory behind crop rotation is that plants will use more of certain soil nutrients, and thus deplete them and will allow insect pests and/or plant diseases to build up in that soil. Rotating crops will allow the soil time to correct those problems, or allow growing crops that may mitigate them. Putting the bed into fallow, but not ignoring that bed, may also help correct those problems, as could solarizing the soil.

Many people think allowing a planting bed to go fallow means doing nothing to it for a year which can be a big mistake. A garden bed let be fallow should not be just let go but should be planted with a green manure/cover crop so that unwanted plant growth does not get a chance to become established. Soil should never be left bare and exposed to the ravages of the sun, wind, and rain, Ma Nature tries to cover bare soil with plants we call "weeds".

ipynda, what is the pH of the soil those plants are growing in? What are the nutrient levels of that soil? How much organic mater is in that soil? How well does that soil drain? How well does that soil retain moisture?

kimmq is kimmsr