Question about crop rotations

[CrazyConure]

Long time no see!

I have a concern about crop rotation. I have a very small garden space. All my plants are in containers. I keep reading about crop rotation and how over planting the same time of plant will deplete the soil of nutrients. This is actually the only reason I want to do crop rotation, but the problem is that I don’t have space. I have about 7 containers that I like to plant fruiting vegetables. I can also rotate with the leaf vegetables, but I don’t plant root or legumes. It’s such a waste of space and time because we don’t eat so much of it. It’s cheaper to just buy it. I feel annoyed that I’m forced to plant these things and take up my already small space.

I was thinking of dumping my used soil in the compost bin for a few months, then reusing it in the same container. Will this method get me around crop rotation?

 

[Silentrunning]

When I lived in Florida and had a container garden I used to empty a little of the soil out and add some Black Cow to fill it back up. This seemed to work well and I had some containers that I planted tomatoes in for over 10 years.

 

[jonereb]

I have read that it's wise to rotate tomatoes each year. I've never had luck with tomatoes and finally gave up.

 

[Tjohn]

The main reason for rotation is disease control. If you are having no problems with blight, mosaic, or fungus, adding nutrients to your containers should be just fine.

 

[CrazyConure]

I did have some blight issues. That’s the main reason that made me look up crop rotation in the first place. How will planting beans, roots, and greens get rid of blight though? Won’t composting have the same effect?

 

[Silentrunning]

Rotation doesn't actually get rid of the diseases. Usually different plants are susceptible to different diseases. If you have diseased tomatoes in a pot, you don't want to plant tomatoes again in that pot. You would want to plant something else that was resistant to that disease. I never found diseases to be a problem in my pots as long as I didn't overwater. Another reason to rotate crops is because of nutrient depletion. That is easily remedied in container gardens.

 

[CrazyConure]

How do you remedy nutrient depletion in containers?

 

[Silentrunning]

I used compost when available and Black Cow most of the time. I also used commercial peet moss once with good results. I avoided commercial fertilizer because I was afraid of over feeding due to the small amount of soil and the restricted drainage.

 

[DirtMechanic]

I would plan on drip irrigation with a nutrient attachment for tomato. It is probably the best setup. And plan on the largest spread of leaves, or as much uv radiation as you can allow, so that the sun helps purify while allowing you maximum accessible surface area for the inevitable fungicide and insecticidal spraying.