Tomato crop rotation: what to plant next?

Can you always plant tomatoes in the same bed? What plants can be planted after tomatoes? We answer all questions about crop rotation for tomatoes.

In many greenhouses and beds, the popular tomato plants grow year after year in the same place. Unlike most legumes such as beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) and peas (Pisum sativum) it doesn't seem to do the tomatoes any harm at first to stand in the same bed over and over again. And yet, tomato crop rotation has significant benefits for your plants and the soil below.

Benefits of crop rotation in tomatoes

A crop rotation with tomatoes actually always makes sense, because the highly consuming plants demand a lot of nutrients from the soil. And diseases are hardly carried over into the next tomato year in this way. However, crop rotation should not only cover tomatoes, but all members of the nightshade family. It is advisable on potatoes (

Solanum tuberosum), Physalis (Physalis peruviana), Paprika (Capsicum annum) and aubergines (Solanum melongena) to renounce. They are also often susceptible to tomato diseases and all require large amounts of nutrients.

Changing the plant families in the bed not only promotes the diversity of soil organisms, but also makes life difficult for many pathogens. A regular and balanced crop rotation for tomatoes means that the use of pesticides is often simply superfluous. The often specialized microorganisms can then no longer find any food or simply cannot attack the new plant at all and ultimately disappear by themselves. At the same time you secure fertile soil for the coming years and at the same time cultivate your garden a little more naturally with a crop rotation after the tomatoes. Check out our special article for more tips soil improvement, which will help you to get a fertile garden soil.

Crop rotation in tomatoes

So the soil and the plants benefit enormously from a crop rotation after the tomatoes. We have summarized for you below what you need to look out for when it comes to the location and subsequent crops.

Do you have to change the location of tomatoes?

Basically, you should change the location of tomatoes regularly. Over the years, so-called soil fatigue often occurs, because the heavily consuming tomatoes leach the nutrient reserves of their substrate one-sidedly. However, as already described, crop rotation can maintain and even increase soil fertility. On the other hand, some fungal diseases stubbornly persist in the soil for years and thus infect several times, even if tomatoes are only on the site again after three or four years. As a result, the yield often falls, the plants tend to show deficiency symptoms or become ill quickly.

If you can not imagine the tomato in your own bed and you have no alternative place, you should heed a few tips for the following culture. Tomatoes are heavy feeders, which means they need a lot of nutrients to grow and bear lots of fruit. In order to ensure the supply of nutrients, compost or slow-acting, primarily organic fertilizers such as ours should be used at least every spring before planting Plantura organic tomato fertilizer be worked into the ground.

In the case of diseases, however, you have to take a closer look, because some pathogens remain in the soil for several years and infect their host plants again and again. They are therefore also referred to as soil-borne. This includes velvet spot disease (Cladosporium fulvum), which forms whitish-grey spots on the undersides of leaves and quickly kills entire plants. Also the Tomato late blight and brown blight (Phytophthora infestans), the gray mold (Botrytis cinerea) and other fungal diseases overwinter as spores in the soil. Infected plant parts must therefore not remain in place under any circumstances, but must be removed as quickly as possible. Varieties that are resistant to some of the diseases already exist and grow well on infected soil. Also root-eating nematodes-Species can survive the winter in the ground, but with the help of the marigold (tagetes sp.) or marigold (Calendula officinalis) simply expelled, because these secrete substances that the roundworms do not get. In our special article you will find out how your Protect tomatoes from diseases be able.

What comes after tomatoes in the crop rotation

After tomatoes and other heavy consumers like pumpkins (Cucurbita sp.) you give the soil and its inhabitants a breather and plant plants with lower nutrient requirements in the bed, as an autumn culture even in the same year. These weak eaters include many leafy greens such as salads (Lactuca sativa), spinach (Spinacia oleracea), but also radish (Raphanus sativus var. sativus). Over the season, the soil can slowly build up a reservoir of nutrients again, but you can still harvest a lot of vegetables. In the years that follow, heavily consuming plants can be planted again, which, however, should not belong to the nightshade family. Good follow-up cultures are recommended, for example sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batata), sweetcorn (Zea mays) or beans.

If you are also interested in which plants can be cultivated together with tomatoes, you will find everything on the subject in our special article "Mixed culture of tomatoes“.