Take a soil sample and have the county agent test it and tell him you
want to grow tomatoes.

(FarmerDill) wrote in message ...

Our soil is predominantly clay. Every year I would turn over the
soil, add ammendments such as peat moss, sand and vermiculite. I
would also add a 50 pound sack of that material that breaks up clay
(sorry, can't remember name.)

For the first ten years I got wonderful tomatoes, fertilizing at first
with a KMart fish emulsion fertilizer, and later with Miracle Grow. I
plant in basins to conserve water, but give the garden a serious
flooding at least once per month. We also get 15 to 20" of rain each
season, so I'm not concerned about fertilizer salt buildup.

Over time I started getting less and less fruit. Lots less. It
seemed to get worse the season after I put a five gallon bucket of
fireplace ash onto the soil prior to turning it over. I did that two
or three years in a row. My yield dropped to practically nothing.
The guy at the local farm supply store didn't think that the ashes had
much to do with the problem.

I suspected nematodes so I sterilized the soil with the Vapam trick,
watered the soil and left it covered for over a month. No difference.
My yield dwindled to a single tomato on six scrawny plants.

I can grow basil, parsely, thyme, lavender, rosemary, peppermint,
chives. No tomatoes, no eggplant, no squash. I didn't even bother to
plant a garden last season, the first time in over 25 years.

May I solicit some suggestions?

Unless you have a buildup of some of soil borne disease, I would suspect that
your soil is depleted. As a simple test, buy a couple of highly disease
resistant tomato plants dig a planting hole large enough to hold a bag of
composted cow manure, mix the manue with the soil and plant the tomatoes. If
they grow, then you can experiment with heirlooms or other less resistant
tomatoe cultivars.