maybe because of their calcium requirement? or bugs? Or maybe they don't want too much nitrogen? Heck if I know.

I heard this idea by word-of-mouth a few years ago.

This has been my excuse for planting tomatoes in the same spot every year.

Big mistake. Fungus, hornworms, etc - Every fall I promise myself I'll skip tomatoes in that spot, every spring when I see the tomato starts in the stores I tell myself "But I heard once that tomatoes like to be planted in the same spot every year...."

Don't do it. Just say no. The times that I have managed to find a new spot for my tomatoes, the plants have thanked me a dozen times over.

It's too late for me. But save yourself.

I've been putting two tomato plants in the same bed for five years and they seem fine. On the other hand, I have a tiny, tiny garden (100 square feet). This means three things: 1) there's no where else to move them, 2) I don't have a lot of traffic in my garden of lots of new plants coming in and out, and 3) I don't have large blocks or rows of the same kind of plant to attract pests. Not to say I couldn't get pests, but I think 20 or 100 tomato plants in someone's larger garden would be way more attractive to a hornworm moth than my measly two.

I haven't seen any drop-off of productivity. Instead I've seen an increase, but that's been due to me increasing how much I ammend the bed with compost.

I think rotating is a big deal for people planting whole fields of monoculture. It's a moderate deal for people with truck gardens of an acre or less of mixed stuff. I don't think it matters a whit for small backyard gardens.

This is the first year I have had a problem with tomato plants having some dread disease. Some sort of wilt I would say off the top of my head, basically they just look dreadful and wilted although they have had enough water, about 5 plants in a group of 10 are withering up. The thing is, these are in a new garden spot far from my others, it was prairie last year. The tomatoes in my vegie garden that grows tomatoes every year are doing just fine. Can't say I have ever found a need to rotate my tomatoes, I grow more of them than anything else so it isn't really possible to rotate them.

Marcia

"Crop rotation" in the average backyard garden is unnecessary. If you have a minimum of 300 feet to seperate your previous garden from the new one, each year of the rotation, it might work but less distance will not stop the insect pests and/or diseases from reaching your new planting space. The single best way to keep that from happening is to make your soil into a good healthy soil that grows strong, healthy plants that can withstand these small problems.
I correspond with people all over the world and these people have all found that if you do have some soil borne disease, adn if you put the plant residue that has that soil borne disease back into the soil, along with lots of good compost, the soil bacteria will, apparently, take care of the pathogens and there will be no more disease after a few years of doing this. I have planted tomatoes in the same bed, and put the plant residue back into that soil, for at least 5 years now with no sign of problems.

I have two beds and always change year after year. However, I have noticed blossome end rot when I grow tomatoes in one of the beds. I don't know how to correct this. In the fall I turn the soil and add compost when I plant garlic and shallots. This year garlic had very small heads and shallots were not much better.

Blossom End Rot is caused by a Calcium deficiency at fruit set and that can be caused by a soil Calcium deficiency of simply because there is just not enough moisture available for the plant to move Ca through the vascular system. Wide fluctuations in soil moisture contribute to this lack of Ca. The single best way to keep fruit from getting BER is to mulch well so the soil is evenly moist, but also be sure the soil nutrients are in balance so the plant can uptake the necessary Calcium when needed, as well as move it around where needed.

for a quick 'pick-me-up' you can water with non-fat milk too... which will help the current crop.

Interesting older post that seemingly flies in the face of conventional wisdom. I grow dozens of Tomatoes, most in the same spot as the preceeding year. Some re-used containers as well. I have had diseases, but none have ended a crop. The soil is ammended heavily with leaf, woodchip and grass clipping compost every year, probably to a depth of about a foot of mellow compost. Some of the heirlooms suffer during rainy growing seasons, but overall I have never had to go buy a store tomato.
I would like to hear more on how one would naturally innoculate a garden against soil boure pathogens and common diseases.

Work on making the soil as good and healthy as you can and rotation is unnecessary. One reason, the major reason, for rotating crops is to utilize the nutrients in that soil best, so after "fertilizing" a field you would plant a crop that uses the most nutrients followed with crops that need less until it is time to renew the soil again. One benefit that was found was that this also aided in disease and insect pest control, but if you "fertilize" the plot each year, maintaining a good, healthy soil with a balanced nutrient load rotation is not needed.