This year we had all tomato beds mulched with 3-4" of wood chips.
Harvesting lots of fruit by now, we noticed that all tomatoes that are growing under wood chips are so juicy. They never have been so juicy in our garden! And the most interesting thing is that we have not watered them since early July. And as they are under cover, they do not get any rain water either.
The wood chips must have been helping the soil to retain so much water!
And all tomatoes taste great. Nothing is mild tasting this year. I wonder why - what's about the wood chips that also improves the taste??? Weird.
Checked beets today. These were never watered or fertilized since transplanting back in early June. They are nice and large!
Kale is unusually huge and so juicy. Even the stems of the bottom leaves are as thick as my thumb, and these are sweet and juicy - both Stan and I munch on these thick stems every time we happen to be close to the kale patch. The Dwarf Siberian kale has bottom leaves that are as long as my arms. It is so huge
.
Parsley taste is also quite unusual with the wood chips. Very strong taste, so we do not need to use too much of it to get lots of flavor.
Winter radish sprouted nicely in the beds where lettuce was, so we moved wood chips back around the sprouts, and this keeps the soil nice and moist.
I like it.
Tatiana