In a discussion last night with some other gardeners about this we deterined that simple logic tells us that, in the average back yard garden, rotating annuals makes no sense because we do not annually rotate the perennials and we have no problems with them so why should we, if we properly build up our soil and make it healthy for plants to grow in, have to rotate annuals. It simply makes no sense to do that which is unnecessary.

This has been said so many times but I will say it again. Just feed the soil and the soil will feed everything else.

As far as I can remember, my grandmother that taught me to garden veggies never ever rotated her crops. I have never rotated crops either in almost 40 years and if I ever had a problem I was too busy to notice it so it could not have been very bad.

As I see it crop rotation would only be helpful if you were growing acres and acres of the same crop over and over to the point that the soil would be drained of one thing and nothing else would be in that area to replace what was removed. In a small home garden, tiny hair-like feeder roots of most plants can spread out for many feet or yards and inter mix to the point that we end up with different plants contributing what others may need whether we planned it that way or not. We inadvertently companion plant without even knowing it.

Just think about it. Are all of your different plants spaced several inches apart or many yards apart?

So, just feeding the soil with compost and mulch will balance everything out in the end.

Well, thatÂ’s my 2-cents for what it is worth.

Carrots. Lots and lots of carrots. The more space for carrots, the better. Or snow peas. Can't have too many snow peas.

That said, I can't imagine it's really necessary in a back yard garden to rotate, unless you're actually not planting the tomatoes this year to help control a tomato disease, or something. And if you're cheek-to-jowl with your neighbours, I hope they're not planting tomatoes, either. *shrug* I rotate just because it's like furniture to me: I can't keep stuff in the same place year after year. (Not even perennials. I just knocked down an 8-year-old tree, for heaven's sake!) I even move the compost bin around. And if something didn't do well in the corner of the garden one year, I want to try something new in that corner, which might do better.

rotation in backyard garden is somewhat important in the sense that if you grew tomaotes on the first row of your garden, dont put them there again, move them over a little, start them on the second or third row. And dont plant the same thing year after year in the same raised bed, swap things around a bit. Every plant takes different amounts of nutrients from the soil and uses it in certain ways, each plant also puts some things back into the soil. But year after year, you finally deplete the soil of those nutrients. George Washington Carver taught us this in the early 1900s. Tubers are the best to amend the soil. Soy beans, cow peas (yes they are edible and very good), peanuts, even potatoes, help to replace nutrients, its best to chop up the plants in the fall and work them back into the soil. All them leaves and stems that you want to pull up and throw away, are made of the nutrients that are in the soil. Working back into the soil puts them back for the next plant. Remember you cannot destroy matter, just change its shape. Even though they are crispy and brown after frost, there are still a lot of the nutrients that the plant took from the soil in the old dead plant. Trees drop their leaves underneath themselves for a reason. As they rot, the feeder roots eat them again and again over and over through the years of the trees life.
But the main reason for rotation is disease and parasites. But thats another topic I can preach on some other time.

farmhound, if I add compost to my garden every year why would growing something depelte the soil of nutrients?

I do not move my roses every year, in fact I have not moved them in years and I just add more compost to the soil each year as I do with all the other perennials which I also do not move. If perennials need not be moved why would annuals, especially if you add compost to the soil every year like you are supposed to.

Perenials are long living, hardy, made to stand there awhile. They feed themselves. Their roots spread out 5, 10, 20 feet away from the base of the plant. Its the way nature engineered them. Garden plants are less hardy, more succeptable to diseases. They grow very rapidly. A tree, or a bush, takes years to grow a 4 feet. A tomatoe plant can grow 5 feet tall in a couple months. All that growth is fed by nutrients from the ground. Composting is great, it replaces those nutrients rapidly and gives them something to eat. Probably the best way to keep the soil alive. However, moving the crops around, helps prevent disease and insects from multiplying and spreading. If you plant a tomatoe plant or say a vine of some king, cucumber for example. without training the vine or plant to grow up, just let it spread out. Dont touch it, let it do its thing. The fruit will grow away from the roots. On the vine or stems of the plant. Untouched, the next year, the new plants will grow where the fruit fell. Untouched, they will continue to spread each year, farther and farther away from the original plant. In gardening, we plant seeds in the same root bed each year, after year, never giving he spot where the original plant grew a break. Soil needs to rest. Even the Caddo indians rotated crops and let their fields lay out, unplanted every few years. THis allows natural grass and weeds to come back and lets the ground go native for a while to become NATURAL again. Even pesky weeds and grasses have a purpose. They replace nutrients, and help rid the soil of diseases and insects that destroy garden crops.
In the early 1900s, we had just about destroyed the soil from planting cotton over and over, it was the cash crop of the time, and folks could not afford to venture from that idea. However its effects were disastrous to the land. George Washing Carver, realized what was happening and knew what to do. He taught the farmers that planting nitrogen fixing tubers, green manure (winter cover) and alternating crops and location would rebuild the soil. Thus, the peanut industry was invented.
I could go on forever with a encyclopedia of info, but I dont think the forum will let me....better quit here till later...

You cite conventional farming practices as support without considering organic gardening practices of building up the health of the soil. If you add compost and other organic matter to your soil like you should then the "conventional" gardening practices cannot be used as a comparison.
By the way it goes way back to ancient times that farming cotton so depeleted soil that it was useless for anything else, Egypt is one example of that. Anywhere land mining, a better name for "conventional" farming was practised the soil was depeleted and became waste land.

http://www.spiritualskyincense.com/crop-rotation.htm Try this one for example, good page.

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/guidelines/rotation.php...here is another, Conventional or organic, crop rotation is very important.

sorry messed that hyperlink up. http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/guidelines/rotation.php there try that one, or this onhttp://www.care2.com/channels/solutions/outdoors/93e http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/organic/faq.htm read Q2 on this one
THere, is that enough support?

Nope. They simply repeat the same misinformation. Think logically. If you each year add "stuff" to your soil to replace the nutrients taken out by the plants you grew you would not need to move them somewhere else because the nutrients taken out have been replaced. Logic tells me that if perennials can grow in the same place year in and year out then annuals can do the same. Ma Nature does not rotate crops, look around at the fields she cares for and note the annuals that grow, year after year, there.
If you mine your planting beds, adding unnatural nutrients, you will need to rotate your crops and even that will do little to no good since the soil will simply get worse every year unless you begin adding the proper, organic, stuff.

But I repeat. Perennials dont grow at the same rate as vegetables, they grow slow, taking years to mature, annuals especially vegetable crops, grow very rapidly reaching maturity in a couple months. And nature dont plant perennials 3 and 4 inches apart like we do vegetable stalks and vines. As far as being natural. Then the whole adding 4 to 6 to 12 inches of compost every year is not right either. There is not 6 inches of compost uder the trees in the woods behind my house, and I have pine trees and oaks and sweet gums thriving, because they grow about 6 inches per year, taking very little from the soil. Comparing them to annuals is like comparing apples and oranges. Two totally different pool of genetics there. Its like humans and monkeys. Both have different growth patterns, and require different diets. If you want natural crops, dont do anything. Nature will take care of it. Let the stalks plants and vines just rot back into the soil and plant in the same place every year. Yes, adding compost helps, keeps nutrients back into the soil, rotating crops helps too. Prevents disease intollerance in the soil and allows the growth of new beneficial bacteria in that area.
To say that everything is misinformation except your way is biased and closed minded to things that might be beneficial to you. Everyone has different ways of doing things, and farming is one of the most widely varied methods around. Soil types, weather, growing periods, overall climate, all need to be considered as to what works for different people. I am in East Texas, we have 7 to 8 months of growing season for warm weather crops.
And California, Florida, South Texas, those places have 10 to 12 months. But they are at the bottom of the water shed area too. Coastal areas grow much better because everything up country washes their way. And who is to say, if they would let the soil lay barren for a spell between crops would not totally change and increase their productive times by a wide margin. In fact. In the Rio Grand valley, farmers do give the land a break between crops, either by planting something else (rotation?) in the field or just letting it lay for a spell to rest and grow natural. Again, grwoing the same thing in the same place year after year is not healthy for the soil, and is a good way to become over run with insects and diseases that could end up harming not only you but your neighbors for several blocks away.
If adding compost and not rotating is working for you in Michigan, then do it. But remember, not everyone lives in Michigan, You have quiet the winter up there to let the soil chill and rid itself of insects. Down here, we dont. Heck, we have only had 6 days below freezing all Winter. So dont say mine is MISINFORMATION, because it works for us down here, try it, it might even work for you. I have tried your way, and it did not work for me. After about the 3rd year, my tomatoes got smaller and had more cases of blossom rot, leaf blythe and mosaic virus, than I could get rid of and it spread to my other plants. I had to let the area lay out for 2 years to get rid of it. Remember climate plays a big part in it too. You obviosly have been lucky so far. But you are taking chances that could be a big set back to your garden if you keep it up.

Whew. Feels a little warm in here.

Maybe it's the dahlias. Worth a try.

I have grown my tomatoes in the same bed as my Dahlias for several years

One more comment, Kimm keeps goin back to the fact that you dont move perennials. Well, that would be silly for one thing, to dig up a well established holly bush or oak tree, or hydrangia and move it. As comparison, we dont dig up our tomatoe plants and move them midway through the growing season either. We wait till they are dead, done, finished. How many of us live in the same house long enough to have to rotate holly bushes or such. How many of us will live long enough to have to rotate an oak forest. See what I am saying, you cant compare the two. We rotate AFTER the plant has done its thing and died. Not in the middle of its life, and to move a perennial is to move a living plant. Dig up a live tomatoe plant, or squash vine, or cucumber vine,and move it, would kill it.
So I leave it with that, do as you will, listen to whoevers ideas you choose, In a sense, we both are right, you dont have to rotate crops if you dont mind the risk of insects, diseases, viruses, and soil damage, but then again, we dont HAVE to flush the toilet after every use either....LOL

Great discussion!! Thanks Kimm and Farmhound I have learned from both of you.