I replace the soil in my few containers of tomatoes, Holly. It's just my homemade, compost mix.

I'd argue that it's best to rotate but there are other considerations. You have mentioned one: location. Water and water pipes and paths figure into that for me. Compost. Diseased plants should be sent off with the g man. If we compost our plants should we then look on the compost with suspicion? What about the rototiller? I think that the natural decomposition of organic matter could help in irradiating diseases but ... I may be putting too much faith in that. And, I can't be stopping to soak the rototiller tines in alcohol, every pass through the old tomato patch!

I once had the thought that monocots and dicots won't share diseases. Wrong! My spellchecker wants to change dicots to idiots. Sometimes it could change idiot to ...

digit

just doing the best he can. "In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards." ~ Mark Twain

One problem I believe happens without rotation is a buildup of soil borne diseases. I try to rotate but it doesn't always happen. What works for me is mulching immediately after planting so that there isn't splash-up when the storm comes.

We always rotate tomatoes to the 'bean bed' from the past year. We've been plagued with Early Blight for the past couple of years, even with heavy mulching and removal of lower branches. We now use several pages of the newspaper between the dirt and the mulch.

No nasty popup this morning! A pleasant surprise when I came to read!

I've been growing my tomatoes in the exact same spot for ten years now!

I only have one place for a veggie garden, and it's on the east side of a two-story house! I picked the sunniest part of the available space for the tomatoes and eggplants--my most important crops! The tomatoes go in the area which is just past the back/northeast corner of the house, so, while most of the veggie garden only gets sun until midday when it moves too far past the house, the tomatoes get sun for all of the morning, and then again after it moves "past" the house at some point in the afternoon--and pretty much until it sets. Tomatoes need SUN, and I'd much rather take my chances of them getting some disease than I would of them not getting enough sun and failing that way!

In all the years I've been growing them there, I've never yet had an Epic Fail! Each year one or two plants have some kind of a problem, and when I see something going wrong I keep and "problem leaves" cut off of those plants! I, long ago, stopped trying to figure out just exactly WHAT the problem is! As I've said around here many times by now, if you ask 10 different people "what's wrong" with a tomato plant, you're gonna get 10 different answers! I haven't yet removed an entire plant when "something goes wrong," tho I usually get very few tomatoes from one of those plants! Oh! And when I notice something is "going wrong," with just about anything, it immediately gets a "Palmolive dish washing soap bath!" That's my cure all for just about anything--tho it seems to help less with tomatoes than with most other things! [I keep a 2-gallon pressure sprayer filled with my Cure All!] For earwigs, which can decimate an entire rhubarb plant in less than 24 hours, and which is right next to my tomatoes, I use Bug-B-Gon--no, I'm not organic, and for slugs I use slug bait, whichever is the cheapest. I put too much into my plants, both veggies and perennials to let some little bugs destroy them--and bugs can carry diseases!

After I plant them (mine still aren't in the ground--I'm, in the HEAT, trying desperately to get the soil turned over right now!) I mulch them with a THICK layer of leaves from the previous fall, that have been laying out there all winter in the bags insulating the soil so the worms can be Doing Their Thing all winter! The leaves are far and away the best mulch I've found! They hold the water like having layers of sponges laying on top of the soil, and my watering has been cut back substantially since I started using them. In fall they get dug into the soil if I have time, or they get eaten by the worms--under the leaf bags--if I don't have time! In the beginning I used grass clipping as a mulch, but I never had enough and they weren't very effective.

I NEVER put tomato plants--even little bits--on my compost pile. Partly because of the possibility of disease, and partly because I don't have a HOT compost pile and the seeds, usually from cherry tomatoes, wind up coming up ALL over my yard! And I do tend to cut off the lower leaves that are in contact with the mulch. Not sure why I do that--just like things looking as good as possible, and a bunch of yellow ratty leaves on the bottom don't look good!

So if you're looking for testimony that tomatoes can be grown, pretty much successfully, in the same spot every year, here is that testimony!

Gotta go! Have some Potter's Clay I need to be turning over! My tomatoes are asking for water twice a day now in their little 3" pots, and pretty soon they're gonna be screaming bloody murder at me every time I walk by them!

Try it and see what happens! You can always change it down the road if it's not workin' for ya!

Skybird

P.S. Don't ya just LOVE spellcheck, Digit! Sometimes it has me totally cracking up! TOTALLY!

EDITED TO ADD:

This is their home! [Just noticed, this is when I was still using the grass clippings!]

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Cw1NBnPiOxC6jnPDeHXRmS6_rfsMNJ4Ltqzjr_Nq_pc?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QqJl2BfmWwhTZsiVqbjG7i6_rfsMNJ4Ltqzjr_Nq_pc?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/vFZDkIzz0uAqYRK5KFOXgC6_rfsMNJ4Ltqzjr_Nq_pc?feat=directlink

The testimony I was looking for, Skybird!

And it is not as if I need to make a decision now. If the tomatoes thrive where I have them planted this year, I will probably replant in the same place at least for the next few years to see what happens for myself.

Of course, if I get ambitious and get some more areas of my garden ready for some new beds BEFORE it is time to plant, finding another place to plant my tomatoes won't be as difficult. The June heat is already making me less ambitious, lol, but there is always the fall. I don't really want a repeat of the frantic bed preparation I was doing this spring, though I am sure I will still be behind and frantically doing something next spring!

I understand your reluctance - and perhaps refusal, lol - to go organic, Skybird. I am tempted to use herbicides when I am over-whelmed by the weeding, and I was ready to nuke them when the slugs started eating my cucumber seedlings, but thus far I have resisted. I may get some Sluggo for the slugs though....

My parents gardened organically back in the 1960's, long before "organic" became the buzz word it is today, so that is what I grew up with and it just seems "right" to me. Even though one of my earliest memories is of "helping" my father plant a tree, and I certainly took it for granted then - and still do! - that one's yard should be full of beautiful plants and trees and vegetables, unfortunately I wasn't all that interested in gardening when I was growing up, so I didn't learn all the "hows" and "whys" of organic gardening from them that I might have. Trying to make up for lost time now, but there sure is a lot to learn!

Holly

I don't rotate my plantings, as I grow almost exclusively in containers and I have specific containers for specific plants. I know the general consensus is that it's a good idea, but everyone's situation is unique. I'd spend $500 a year if I replaced the mix in all of my containers. I am in my 3rd season with the same mix in several Earthboxes and other containers that I've used only for tomatoes or peppers and everything this season is absolutely thriving. Unless I detect/suspect some sort of soil-born disease, I don't really see the point. I know some people are proactive, but I tend to be reactive, at least when it comes to garden do and garden don't. If it ain't broke, I don't fix it.

I quite agree with you, nbm - if it ain't broken, don't fix it!

Interesting that you grow your plants in the same potting mix year after year. Presumably you have no problems with disease, funguses, etc., but I would think that heavy feeders like tomatoes would soon deplete the "soil," and even potting mix (which does not contain soil, of course) compacts after a while. Pretty cool that you have run into no problems.

Though most of my veggies are "in-ground," I also grow annuals, peppers and herbs in containers, along with at least one "small" tomato that works well in a pot - this year that would be Silvery Fir Tree. Even for the annuals, I usually remove about half of the "old" potting mix and mix in fresh potting mix to fill the container; it replenishes the mix and helps to fluff it up a bit. All of the 'used' potting mix gets dug into my garden beds - someday this clay will become workable, right?!?

This year I actually emptied the veggie and herb containers completely and refilled them with a mix of half organic potting mix and half dairy cow manure. That's an experiment for me, haven't added cow manure before and hoping that it doesn't screw up the drainage/texture/etc. of the mix. So far everything seems to be doing well but it is too early to tell - it's only been about 3 weeks since everything got planted in this manure-infused mix.

Unlike you, I don't have tons of pots, but you are right, buying new potting mix every year can get expensive. I normally only replace about half of it each year, which helps to keep my wallet from going into hysterics.

Holly

Hey Holly -

No, I haven't had any issues with the soil developing any fungus or diseases.. yet. I think part of the equation is that the Earthboxes and 5-gallon buckets I grow in have covers on them that prevent a lot of ickies from getting into the soil in the first place. They're all self-watering and require the soil cover to minimize evaporation and keep moisture in.

Now, I also grow in many open containers including whiskey barrels. This season I think I have almost 15 of them, all of which require about 64 quarts of potting mix. The only issues I really have with them is weeds. I'm having a terrible time with them this year, but it's par for the course when they sit out in the open and exposed to the elements 24/7/365. I should probably refresh/replace the top few inches each season before "tilling" the potting mix to try and get the newly fallen weed seeds out. I try to think positively about weeds in general, though - I just think of the big weed-pulling days as my workout days and then it doesn't seem like such a bad thing. :) Yard work is most definitely one of the best full body workouts.

For the Earthboxes and buckets, on the other hand, I do replace the top 3-5" or so of potting mix each season just because so much of it gets pulled out with the root ball (which I usually let decompose as much as it can during the winter and then remove in early March). There is some expense there, but certainly nothing like replacing all of the potting mix every season. I haven't really ever thought of what I would do with the potting mix from 40 large containers if I ever had to rid myself of all of it.. eek. I do have two small areas of in-ground gardens in the back corners of the yard (used for strawberries, corn and onions), but I wouldn't have even close to enough space for all that mix. Well, I don't need to worry about that, at least for now.. :)

One thing I'm trying is Neem cake. I'm a big fan of Neem as a spray and soil drench for bad buggies as I do stay organic for my food crops. Most of what I want to grow in my six raised beds are tomatoes peppers and eggplant. I've never ever figured out how the crop rotation was supposed to work in that scenario. I move stuff around as best I can, but.....

If you're not already familiar, Neem cake is granola sized pellets that is left over after they press the Neem seeds to extract the oil. It still has some of the azadirachthin and also (supposedly) acts as a mild slow release fertilizer. I first tried it last year, so don't really have results to share, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

You do indeed have a lot of containers, nbm!; I wouldn't be
financially able to replace all of the potting soil either and that would be a
lot of trips to the store to pick up bags of potting mix! (At least for me, considering that my current
"pickup truck" is a little Kia Spectra, lol.) I would need to buy in
bulk and have it delivered.

I have looked into some of the self-watering container
systems but just can’t justify the cost when I already have some large
ceramic pots to use. From what I have
read, Earth Boxes and the like do a better job of ensuring that the plants get just the
right amount of water they need, so I think I am envious of those that can
afford them and use them, lol. I am sure
my ceramic pots look nicer, though! :-P

I have wondered what I will do with the “spent” potting mix
when I run out of room for it in my garden beds, but with a yard full of clay
soil needing all the organic matter it can to become actually workable soil,
that is not going to happen any year soon!

I hadn’t heard of Neem Cake before but I am going to look
into it; a quick search brought up this page:
Benefits for using organic neem cake as a soil amendment
which makes it sound like the best thing since sliced bread. Hope you let us know how it does for you,
maxinmontrose. And I see why you have
problems with crop rotation, since tomatoes, peppers and eggplant are all in
the same rotation grouping; that would be difficult unless you can add a bunch
more beds….

Holly