ENTRY # FORTY EIGHT.
Good Morning,
Questions about tomato growing have begun to arrive, and it makes me smile. In this journal I am going to post the questions and the answers, maybe it will be of help to someone. Feel free to write me if you have any questions, or want to correct me on any wrong information I may have given. I need your help. I have produced tomatoes for many years, but feel that I still don't know very much about it. But we will find the answers some where,I am sure.
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Question # One. Crop Rotation.
This question is from Arizona.
"Just a fast question. I read sometime back, and can not find the information.What is it that Tomato plants deplete from the soil if planted in the same location year after year ? Our soil here is very alkaline. I have changed it to slightly acidic. That was one thing.. Several years in a row , I had great Tomatoes, now I do not. I did read some time back about crop rotation and what Tomatoes deplete from the soil
but it seems that I do not remember that, and can not locate the information. It is almost time for us to plant here in Phoenix, so I must get this corrected or my Tomatoes will fail again for the second year. Thanks for your time. Lori."
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Dad's Answer.
Hello Lori,
Thanks so much for your e-mail and hope that I can help you. Many people seem to be wondering about rotation. I have 50 plants in one garden, just don't have the space , and I am not able to rotate and keep the same number of plants. I have been doing that in this one garden for 10 years, and I do produce some beautiful Tomatoes. I'll send you some pictures later. I do know that rotation is good, but if you can't do it don't give up. What I do is when I put my plants in th ground I use either chicken or cow manure around and under the plant, and then watch them grow. Using a little Miracle-Grow helps too.
The links below will take you to a lot more information. More than I will ever know.
Write me any time
http://www.farm-garden.com/primers/17/
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/tomato.html
posted by Dad @ 3:28 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Sorry to butt in here, you obviously know a lot about tomatos and your links will probably tell your people more than I can impart, but let me give it a shot.
All plants require substantial amounts of three essential elements. They are Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potash, represented by three consecutive numbers on the commercial fertilizer you buy, in the order given. Green Leafy vegetables require large amounts of Nitrogen. Your Manure is providing plenty of Nitrogen. Flowering and Fruit plants require large amounts of Phosphorus, and Root plants require large amounts of Potash. Your Miracle Grow is providing that, but make sure you are buying the one high in the middle number, as that is the one for Phosphorus, which your tomatos need the most.
In other words, buy 15, 30, 15 Miracle Grow, or a similar combination.
As for rotating crops, the only issue is one that is also important with your roses, which you also love to grow I am gathering. This has to do with disease, and especially in the case of tomatos, blight. It resides in the soil,if you do not properly clean-up each year and dispose of the old vines in a remote mulch or burn. Once you get blight, you are more susceptible to it in subsequent years. The same is true for Black Spot in Roses.
I don't believe blight is in the soil; at least not exclusively. I have tried using packaged potting mix in planters and still am plagued by blight. I'm using a plastic box called "Earth box" which uses a sheet of plastic over the potting mix with just slits in the plastic so that the soil is exposed to almost no rain. Watering is from the bottom by wicking action. Still my tomato plants are nearly dead from blight. I think blight is carried in the air, not the soil or maybe both ways. Thanks.
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