I have searched the web and OC looking for your reference to the Rule of 7 gardening. You also refer to it as the 7 7 Rule in another post. Could you please tell me what that is..Thanks so much.

veggiegal: The 7-7 rule is for tomatoes especially. It means that you move your tomato plants a miniumn of 7 feet each year and don't plant in the same spot for 7 years. Other vegetables that will benefit from the same rule are any in the Nightshade (Solanaceae) family.

OH thank you....I really appreciate your answering me....

OH NO!! I've really made a mess for myself. I'm growing tomatoes in every single spot I have. Is there anything I can do for next year??

Don't worry about it.

I don't think my tomatoes have moved in seven years.

Rotation of crops in home gardens is likely of negligible value. It's not like a pathogen is going to come out of the ground and go "Oh no, I just can't move seven whole feet!" Good, healthy soil will do far more towards limiting the effects of pests and pathogens then rotating.

It's one of those techniques that work well at farm size, where you may be moving them hundreds of feet or more every year and taking several years to return. It doesn't scale down to be important in a home garden.

Thanks Matt!! That makes me feel better. Don't know what I'd do w/o my maters

I also garden in pots. But, you must clean out the pots really well and spray with a mild bleach water solution and let dry before replanting tomatoes again. Then you really feel secure that nothing was left behind to hurt our prizes..

The whole concept of "crop rotation" is meant to maintain soil fertility, although of late the idea of keeping plant disease and insect pests has been incorporated. "Crop Rotation" in the average backyard garden does little since there needs to be a large space seperating this years crop from last years so the disease pathogens and insect pests could not, theoretically, move to the new planting. If the average gardener will add compost and organic matter to the soil each year, make that soil good and healthy, there would be no need to even think about "crop rotation" because the soil is healthy and will help the plants grow strong and healthy and better able to ward off any potential disease.
Moving a tomato plant 7 feet will do little or nothing to ward off any plant disease, much less a pest, if nothing is done to get the soil nutrients balanced and the soil in a condition to be evenly moist but well drained. I have grown tomatoes in the smae space now for 30 plus years, adding compost each year, and have not seen any sign of a plant disease, and if I plant Dahlias with the tomatoes will not see the dreaded Tomato Hornworm.

Thanks for this valuable advise...

Kimm1; you are doing the people of this forumn a great diservice by saying that rotation does nothing for crops in the hoe garden. Rotation was one of J. I Rodales big topics in Organic Gardening over the years. It has definetly been proven that moving tomato plants from year to year lessens the chance of disease. Please don't tell people not to rotate.

leafspot, I am trying to get people to think about and not simply accept as truth old theories that have simply been moved from one area of gardenning to another without good research to support that theory.
Do you annually move your perennials, to prevent them from getting plant diseases or keep them from being bothered by insect pests? If you do not move your perennials why do you need to move annuals?