Rotate tomato patch to keep plants healthy

By Audrey Post
MS. GROW-IT-ALL

Q: I have been growing tomatoes in my back yard for about 20 years. I have an 8 x 8 plot that is filled with mushroom compost. Each year I replenish the top 2 to 3 inches with new compost. In the last two or three years, my tomatoes have yellow spots on them and sometimes they don’t grow as big as they should. I plant in March, water as needed and fertilize them when they are just beginning. They are still meaty inside and taste good; they just don't look like they used to, big and red. Could it be the soil or maybe I'm not fertilizing them correctly? If I need to have the soil tested, where would I go to have that done?

A: Even though you’ve been topping off your plot with fresh mushroom compost each year, you’re still growing tomatoes in the same soil year after year and that’s not a good idea. It’s better to rotate your tomato patch so that you don’t grow tomatoes in the same soil for at least three years. If you don’t rotate, any disease that affects your tomato plants in a given year can over-winter in the soil and affect next year’s tomatoes, so planting vegetables from a different family will reduce the likelihood of repeat problems.

Many things could be responsible for yellow spots and smaller fruits. You didn’t say whether there were any other problems with your tomato plants, such as spots or wilting on leaves, or whether there had been any other changes in your tomato patch, such as trees growing taller and reducing the amount of sunlight. I suggest you conduct a soil test to rule out any nutritional deficiencies and plan on planting your tomatoes in a new plot next year.

You can pick up the soil-testing kit from your County Extension Service. In Tallahassee, the Extension Office is at 615 Paul Russell Road, about a mile east of the fairgrounds. The kit comes with a plastic bag for collecting the soil, a cardboard box for mailing it to the lab and an instruction sheet. There’s no charge for the kit, but there is a small charge for the lab to process the sample.

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