To mulch or not to mulch?

To prepare my tomato patch this year, I grew some green manure for a few months and then dug it in (L) and covered with pea straw (R).

When I dug over the patch ready for planting only a couple of months later the soil was like moist, light chocolate cake (L below). I dug over the brassica bed that I had left unmulched and you can see how much drier the soil (R below) is and less rich after the enthusiastic broccoli, rocket and bok choi had finished with it!



Now I have some happy tomatoes (below) growing in the mulched patch and have installed a drip line that runs off a gravity-feed water system (ie low pressure), so I can use some of our tank water up the back of the garden that is higher up the slope. It saves water and I'm a lazy gardener! The whole veggie patch is on slightly downward-sloping land, so the drip line runs perpendicular to the slope and the water drips through very nicely along the whole 15m line. Mind you, I actually need a second line to cover my whole patch, although the potatoes are doing fine without special treatment.