I started a new gig around town. I'm a Garden Apprentice. Pretty sweet, right? I'm volunteering some of my time with the Urban Farm Collective at their Turner Garden. In exchange I get produce at a market each week containing veg and herbs from all their gardens and, even better, I get a crap-ton of knowledge. I've been working with them for the past month or so but I have already learned a lot and have regretted a lot of my garden techniques and planning for this season.
The most recent discovery is that kale and tomatoes don't like each other. I had no idea. I at least had no idea how much they don't like each other. I have two sections of tomatoes this year. One section is planted in 'virgin' soil, one of the new beds. I also did some good companion planting here and put carrot rows in between my tomatoes. They are both doing amazingly well! I've got a few basil sprouts coming up in there too (plus some leeks).
The others are planted where I had my kale last year.
I blamed the poor tomato growth on my lack of fertilizer and amending soil from last season, which I am sure is a large contributing factor. But, I think the shoddy growth has a lot to blame on the previous tenets of kale. In fact, I put my spring kale this year in the bed where I had my tomatoes last summer. What do you know, we didn't have any spring kale. It grew to about three inches tall and never progressed. I'm blaming last summer's tomatoes. I finally pulled up the little baby kales that never matured and put peppers in their place. Hopefully they will fare better.
Tomatoes love carrots and they hate kale. Duly noted.
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