Compost tomato plants for next tomato garden?

http://www.freerepublic.com ^ | 8-3-11 | self

[Former MSM Viewer]

Anyone ever compost tomato plants to use in the next tomato garden? Or is that too 'in-bred'?

[Former MSM Viewer]

I had a great garden, now its time to get ready for the next one...

[OB1kNOb]

I would not, in case your plants this year had a fungus that could spread as you put the resulting mulch in next years garden, but that’s just me.

[lucky american]

You can compost plants for next year ONLY if you had no disease and you plan upon using the compost for other plants. Tomato blight will live even if you live in a cold climate. My advice, compost in a separate pile.

[TheBattman]

I completely pull up all I can of my tomato plants and BURN them. If you compost the old plants, you will likely carry over any diseases (whether your plants showed symptoms or not). The worst of all of those diseases, in my experience, is the tomato blight. It is a virus that can live dormant in soil for years. If your plants didn’t get very stressed, they may very well have blight but didn’t get overcome by it. Composting them would insure that the virus is carried over.

[Gabz]

The only tomato plants I have that are surviving our heat and lack of rain are ones I didn’t plant. They are “volunteers” from the volunteers I had last season. It’s really weird.

I’ve had tomato plants sprout up in the weirdest places over the years, like in the burn pile where I had tossed some that had gotten over ripe.

[Red_Devil 232]

Calling all gardeners!

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[OpusatFR]

I don’t because of the possibility of disease.

Saving the seed is fine for heirlooms.

[de.rm]

I don't remember seeing the farmers in my area clearing the old vines.

[Semper911]

Big no-no. Even if your plants never showed any signs of fungus damage (yellowed leaves near the bottom, bulls-eye spots, etc.) they most certainly carry spores.

Just bag them all up and put them in the trash. Any and every tomato gardener/farmer will tell you to never compost tomato foliage/stems/roots.

So what did you grow this year? Any heirlooms? I am still staring down my green fruits and waiting for first blush. I have 7 different varieties this year, all heirlooms. Foliage disease is something I know a lot about.

[Psalm 73]

Hmmm, never thought of that.
I compost damn-near everything (except meat and dairy) - get about 14 wheel-barrows full of dark soil every spring.
Of course, I do get tomato plants sprouting all over the place.....

Funny, I see more conservatives compost and recycle than I see liberals - and we're supposed to be the planet-killers.

[waterhill]

Compost away. The heat/action of composting plus the microbiotic critters will take care of things for you.

I compost everything except for plastics and steel.

[Red_Devil 232]

I do not compost my tomato plants.Composting the plants can spread disease.

Tomato plants can harbor diseases that cause havoc in the garden the next season. Even if you are rotating crops you are going to mixing the composted material in throughout the garden-possibly spreading disease far and wide.

[Semper911]

The heat/action of composting plus the microbiotic critters will take care of things for you.

Disagree. Fungus spores are tough little bastards.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Thanks for the ping. Interesting thread.

[Vigilanteman]

Agreed. And it isn't just the disease fear. It is because tomato plants are woody, fibrous and don't break down easily. They do, however, burn pretty well when dry.

[handmade]

Same as weed seeds, I would not count on the temps during composting to be hot enough to kill anything. Course I mix, stir, and use the finished product without benefit of thermometers etc.

Because I do not know what has been composted I will not get the (I think still free) compost from the city landfill either.

[MrB]

I had a lot of volunteer stuff out of the compost that I put down. Tomatoes, squashes, peppers...

[dblshot]

when I was stationed at the Coast Guard Reserve Training Center I got a load of silt from the “glass house” the sewage treatment plant there. I had a quarter acre garden and boy did all the plants grow like crazy. I couldn't give away the zucchini as fast as it grew. Only problem was the cherry tomatoes that they served in the garden made it all the way through the system and were sprouting all over my garden. Tough little seeds them cherry tomatoes.

[KC Burke]

Clean all the fish you catch for the balance of the year and composte the heads.

[Former MSM Viewer]

I planted 11 tomato plants in late Feb...(Im near Houston). Was picking tomatoes in April.

Planted spinach among the new tomato plants and harvested till it got hot...the tomatoes then overgrew where I had the spinach. Had yellow squash and green zucchini...not much production...

Had 5-6 kinds of peppers, not much #’s but they were tasty.

This was in a 10’x10’ plot...