Steve Clausen

I never met anyone who didn't like fresh ripe tomatoes from the garden. No judgement, just interesting how we all have different tastes--literally in this case.

Jen, try this roasted tomato sauce recipe it's easy and good.   https://anoregoncottage.com/roasted-tomato-sauce/

If you want a water bath canning recipe of this same sauce check out this link. It's a slightly changed variation that's safe for canning, and the water bath method is super easy.  https://anoregoncottage.com/water-bath-safe-canned-roasted-tomato-sauce/

I use a variety of cover crops, including just letting the weeds feed the soil for a while. But the one I use the most, so it must be my favorite, is Winter Rye.  I grow winter rye for hay/straw mulch for garden annuals that can be mulched; tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc... For garden beds that I know I'm going to rotate those plants into next season, I'll plant winter rye, and sometimes with harry vetch or winter peas, the fall before. About mid May, the rye is in the milk stage and I can crimp it to kill it if it's just rye. If I have vetch or winter peas with it I'll have to cut it. I wait a week or so and will then  plant the tomatoes/peppers/squash right into the crimped or cut rye. Thus, I get a soil conditioner ( living roots in the ground all winter ) and a nitrogen fixer, plus a mulch all in one. The rye mulch keeps the soil soft and moist all summer, and it slowly breaks down and returns nutrients to the soil.

I also plant winter rye as a green manure and for dried straw for making compost. Again, it's cut at the milk stage so the seeds are not viable, so I can use the whole plant seeds and all. I just let it dry and when I need carbon for my compost I have it.

I have garden beds set aside for just cover crops. After the rye I'll but in a quick round of buckwheat, and then oats and peas for summer to rejuvenate what I have taken out with harvesting the rye.      

I don't have a scientific paper reference at hand for you, but I've read and listened to a lot of podcasts and such on the subject from soil scientists and plant experts. Apparently plants are lazy, like humans, and perfectly happy to grow on junk food ( synthetic NPK ). This leaves out the microbs feeding them and in the process secondary metabolites, minerals, flavonoids, etc... are lacking, and apparently water is takes up the space where these nutrients would be in the plant.

I don't know if this is what you're looking for?

Here's Dr. Christine Jones talk on the negatives of using artificial N. Around the 7:00 minute marks she addresses plants lacking nutrients.





Also google Dr. James White and the Rizophagy cycle on how plants harness microbs to get all the nutrients they need without artificial inputs.

John Kempf and Dan Kittredge are other good ones to look up.

It's been all out war with pests this year for me also. I've had a fenced in kitchen garden for about ten years now; it's about 40x40 feet. It started with a six foot deer fence, and then I soon needed to add a hardwire cloth fence to keep the bunnies out. That, along with the occasional need to deal with a woodchuck that setup residency on my property--and before he dug his way into my fenced in garden, has served me well until recently.

This growing season I had voles galore setup up shop in my garden, whiteflies attacked my kale ( along with the usual cabbage moth caterpillars and the ilk ), the squash vine borers stooped to new levels of wickedness, chipmunks raiding my tomatoes, cutworms ravishing my seedlings, and I had to deal with five woodchucks. Oh, and something attacked my peach tree with about 30 peaches one night just before they were ripe enough for me to pick them. I'm suspecting racoons; they not only stole all the peaches, they wrecked the tree by breaking the main leader branch.    

I plant a lot of flowers along with my veggies to attract beneficial insects, but the whiteflies were so prolific that they didn't even put a dent in them. Never had a whitefly problem before, and supposedly they don't overwinter, so I'm hopeful that I don't see them next year.  

Back to the vole problem. I have really been giving the voles more and more rope to hang me with over the past few years. Voles don't like to run over open expanses of ground, because their predators are mostly from above; owls, raptors, fox, coyotes, etc... When I first put my garden fence up I mowed the grass close near the fence. The weeds between the deer fence and the shorter ( 3 ft ) rabbit fence were always a problem. So I planted comfrey along the fence on the north side, and that has taken off like a house-a-fire. But this comfrey weed blocker also makes a nice cover for the voles to nest, and make their shallow tunnels under my fence and into my garden. On the south and east side I added a black plastic ground cloth  under and along the fence one foot in and out, and covered it with woodchips. This kept the weeds from growing between the two fences, but made a nice spot for the voles to run under the plastic, as cover from predators. Last year almost all of my wintering over parsnips, and half of my winter larder rutabagas were eaten by said voles. This growing season half of my winter squash was eaten by voles before the squash was ready to pick. So I just finished a huge project of removing the rabbit fence, and then digging an 18 inch trench, by hand, all around my garden right next to the deer fence and then burying a portion the rabbit fence to keep the voles at bay.    

So yes, gardening is not for the faint of heart. Esp. a small kitchen garden where growing more to feed the critters is not necessarily an option. But, keep up the good fight, Jen; it's worth it.