Not me. At the end of the season I bag and dispose of the tomato plants and other debris, put down a little mulch, and the garden looks cleaned up and ready to plant, after the very short winter here.

Since the tomato plants in my area pretty much stop bearing tomatoes around July, (and I don't plant a fall crop or tomatoes) that's when the tomato plants are removed.

In nature no one torches them... they decompose and contribute to the soil. And it continues on year after year. Food for thought.

> Not me. At the end of the season I bag and dispose of the tomato plants
and other debris, put down a little mulch, and the garden looks cleaned
up and ready to plant, after the very short winter here.

make a bin or a small section in your garden where you throw all garden waste.. it turns into something called compost! you live off the earth, now it's your turn to give back rather than fill up the landfill.

I would clean up and compost them, unless there was some foliage disease.

sey

I wouldn't let solanaceous plants decay in place. Too many pathogens can overwinter on their decaying tissues. If you're one of the few people who has no problems with disease, then, as Sey says, composting is a great option. But I always have some foliage disease, and even if it's not serious enough to affect harvest, I don't want to risk ending up with soil or compost that exposes next year's plants to those pathogens earlier than they would get exposed to them normally. With many foliar diseases, delaying onset is key to a successful growing season.

I pull mine up and burn them. One of the best practices I have learned is to pull up all of my finished plants and burn them, for the reasons that gorbelly states. And, in addition to harboring diseases, some pests overwinter their eggs on the detritus.

IMO, nothing wrong with taking items to a landfill either. After all, it is a designated space for just that and they decompose in a landfill, just like they do in a compost pile.