As summer harvests start to wind down and you’re swapping out warm-season plants for cool-season crops, you can decide what to plant after tomatoes. I always like to have some seeds at the ready to fill the spaces left behind by other plants. While tomatoes are the stars of many home gardens, there are other crops that can grow and produce food well after the excitement over those juicy fruits has faded. Even in climates that experience winter weather, you can continue enjoying various harvests into the colder months of the year.

In this article, I’ll give you ideas for how to make the most of your garden space by planting a second crop after tomato season finishes. We’ll look at crop rotation and succession planting, deciding on the cool-season crops right for your space, and the benefits of cover crops. At the end of the article, I’ll also cover what you shouldn’t plant after tomatoes.

Why grow another crop after the tomato harvest?

In most parts of North America, it’s possible to keep the garden productive for weeks after the last of your tomatoes. Here are some reasons I think it’s important to consider what to plant after tomatoes:

• Planting cool-season vegetables maximizes the yield you can get from your garden space.
• Cover cropping feeds the soil microbes and establishes a mulch you can plant into come next season.
• Keeping the soil covered with plants and infiltrated by roots reduces erosion, improves soil texture and water-draining capacity, and keeps soil microbes happy.
• Especially in small-space gardens, planting a new crop interrupts the pest and disease cycle.

Considering what to plant after tomatoes

What to plant after tomatoes is such an individual choice that it’s difficult to give blanket advice. Think about:

• What other vegetables do you like to eat?
• What crops are suited to cool-weather growing, given your climate?
• Are you willing to pull out your tomatoes a few weeks early to accommodate longer-maturing crops?
• What’s your aim in planting immediately after tomatoes? Would a cover crop be a better choice than vegetables?

Getting the timing right

In planning what to plant after tomatoes, you have to get the timing right. You want to strike the balance between letting the tomatoes finish their production and getting the next crop in the ground so it can produce, too, before the weather turns. Keep in mind that it’s possible to pull tomatoes while they’re still green, or partially green, and those fruits will continue ripening after harvest.

The benefits and requirements of crop rotation

In addition to getting the timing right, consider the importance of crop rotation as well as the needs of the plants to come next.

Crop rotation happens when you grow plants from different families in succession. Tomatoes are known to be heavy feeders, taking a lot of nutrients from the soil, and this practice helps to keep any one crop from depleting soil nutrients. Crop rotation also reduces pest and disease pressure.

Tomatoes are in the nightshade family, along with potatoes, peppers, and eggplants. To rotate crops, choose plants from other families.

If you’re companion planting (growing other plants alongside your tomatoes to improve the harvest, attract beneficial insects, or feed the soil) take into consideration the companion plant families, as well, in your crop rotation plans. For example, sunflowers, radish, basil, dill, and fennel are all proven companion plants for tomatoes. You wouldn’t want to plant those crops or crops related to them next in the rotation.

Succession planting considerations

Succession planting is growing one crop right after another, keeping the garden continually in production. What you’re able to plant after tomatoes depends on your climate and the next crop’s needs. A few things to consider:

• To plant a cool-season crop with a long period to maturity, such as cabbages, broccoli, or cauliflower, you may need to pull your tomatoes before they’re fully finished producing so you can transplant the new crop within a good weather window.
• To plant a quick-producing cool-season crop, such as radishes or leafy greens, you can probably let your tomatoes finish their production before cutting them down and seeding the new plants.
• You may find that some crops overwinter in your climate, including carrots, spinach, kale, and Brussels sprouts. Time your planting so these vegetables become established before your first frost.
• Alliums (garlic, onions, and leeks) are also a smart crop family to plant after tomatoes.

Fast-maturing crops for the cool-season

What to plant after tomatoes is limited to cool-season crops for most of us. Fast-maturing vegetables are the right choice for anyone who has especially cold winters or doesn’t want to deal with garden management over the winter. As the summer crops wrap up and the fall begins, leafy greens, root vegetables, brassica plants, and herbs become the garden stars.

Leafy greens: Lettuce, arugula, kale, bok choy, and Swiss chard all enjoy the cool weather. These plants will thrive as weather gets cold and will even withstand frosts. As your nights dip into freezing temperatures, the right mulch and floating row cover will protect them from light freezes, too.

Root vegetables: Salad radishes (see note about about companion planting) are speedy root vegetable crops, ready less than one month after seeding. They can handle a light frost, and floating row cover can give them the extra few degrees they need to get through a light freeze. Other root vegetables, including carrots, beets, daikon radishes, and watermelon radishes are also appropriate cool-season vegetables to plant after tomatoes, but they’re not fast-maturing.

Brassicas: Several brassica family members are fast-maturing, including kale, mustard, and arugula, which can be eaten as baby or full-grown leaves. Broccoli rabe and some kohlrabi can be harvested about 45 days after seeding.

Herbs: Dill and cilantro can be direct seeded or transplanted as seedlings into the garden after tomatoes come out. I’ll usually tuck a parsley plant or two in the garden, as well. These herbs are nice to have around in the fall because they’re frost tolerant and can add flavor to dishes as your homegrown harvests begin to wane.

Cover cropping after tomatoes

Planting another vegetable crop after tomatoes isn’t for everyone. Sometimes you want a break from the gardening season, you didn’t pull your tomatoes out of the garden in time to plant another vegetable, or you want to focus on your garden’s soil fertility. In these cases, cover crops are the logical answer to what to plant after tomatoes.
A mix of cover crop types offer the widest benefit to your garden. This goes for raised beds as well as gardens grown in ground. Consider planting a few of these:

• Nitrogen-fixing legumes, such as peas
• Deep-rooted crops, such as daikon radishes, to break up heavy soil
• Grasses, such as rye or wheat. The tall stalks of these plants will create a straw-like mat that you can plant into next spring, or you can mow them down and use the grass clippings as mulch.

Plants to avoid growing after tomatoes

After your tomatoes are finished, give that garden space a break from nightshade plants. Tomatoes’ nightshade brethren (eggplant, potatoes, peppers) are the main crops to avoid growing after tomatoes.

If your tomatoes had a disease or fungal infection, research that issue to see if other plants can also be affected. If so, avoid planting those after the tomatoes; otherwise you risk spreading the problem.

Also avoid growing warm-season crops after tomatoes, unless you live in a sub-tropical climate that never sees frost. As great as it would be to eke out a crop of melons, corn, cucumbers, or beans at the end of the main growing season, these plants won’t mature in time for a harvest before the cold sets in.

Putting in second crops after tomatoes adds tasks to my garden to-do list, but I appreciate the chance to harvest more homegrown vegetables for a longer period into fall and winter.

More succession planting articles

• What to plant after potatoes
• Vegetables to plant in August
• Summer succession planting basics
• Three mid-summer crops to plant
• What to plant after garlic

** Check out our Farm Kits Guide to Growing Tomatoes **