Yes..........definitely do not plant Nettles and Comfrey. If you do you will be sorry for the rest of your life. Comfrey tea is very good. If you have a large property go out on the back forty and plant Comfrey in a fence row. Investigate to find a leaf supply. Use them for so called free mulch. My supply is three city blocks away at the Township yard waste collection place. They are all free. Tomatoes are heavy feeders. If you can put a gallon of compost in each planting hole you may have enough. I would consider purchasing a bag of organic fertilizer with low numbers like 4-2-4. One handful when planting and a top dressing of a handful when the first bloom is set. It sounds to me like you are planting a whole lot of tomatoes. If you are heavy eaters figure just two plants to each member of your family. Twice that will give you between ten and twenty pints to freeze. These are minimal estimates. I would hate to see you needing to hire help just to pick them all. You are definitely thinking the right direction. Without some kind of cover crop or cover mulch you may be thinking to big. I have never used a cover crop while growing. Any cover mulch will work but the supply of material should be close by at the time you need it. My personal experience is that if I do not have huge pile of material waiting it just does not get done. That is when the trouble begins. Hope this gives you some things to consider. I like the original question. Your care to tell us where you are in process helped me to think I know where you are heading. I hope you get several other responses from which you may consider and choose some advise.

Here is a cheap and easy way to eliminate slugs. Mix equal parts clear ammonia and water in gallon jug. Add 2-3 tablespoons of Murphy's oil Soap, mix and pout into spray bottle. Go out after dark with a good flashlight and spray mixture right on the little buggers. They instantly turn to slime and die and fall off plants. There is a lot of satisfaction with this method. I have reduced the slug population to almost nothing using this spray. The ammonia will not hurt plants, mixed with water, it is almost pure nitrogen and really makes the hostas green up. Do this for 3-4 nights in a row and then couple times a week after. In the fall, be sure to check the grass. We found that's when they are out "making whoopie" for new babies in the spring. We had them so bad a couple years ago, DH mixed this in a 3 gallon sprayer and would use it all in one night. My Grandson loves to say on a warm evening, "Hey Nana, lets go hunt slugs. The Murphy's oil soap will remain on the leaves and when those baby slugs you see eat the leaves, it will give them a fatal case of the trots. Just what they deserve! I have used beer traps, but found this to eliminate them much faster and I don't have to dump the dead slugs out.

Yes I noticed it to. I have sunflowers in my veggie garden and there are several squash bugs that just sit on them. They never seem to move off the sunflowers. Whenever I go out they are there and never on my squash.

Hey folks, I have some aphids hitting my brassicas, as they are wont to do. Not too bad though-I've managed with a good ladybug population and one application of pyrethrum. The only crop that was hit beyond saving is a bed of brussels sprouts. the aphids are real nasty on these guys because they get into the sprouts and i'm pretty much unable to wash them out, as you can with aphids on kale, even broccoli. One thing I've noticed, however, is that while the aphid infestation is going nuts on the brussels, the kale and cauliflower that are immediately neighboring the brussels are hardly affected. Like there are only a few aphids here and there. For one thing I think the kale and cauliflower are generally healthier/stronger plants... But I have a theory that the brussels are kind of acting like a trap crop for the aphids... Is that theory hogwash or is there something to it. I'm almost tempted to keep the brussels in to contain the aphid population. I worry that if I take them out the aphids will find a neighboring host. It's too bad that the trap crop is a marketable crop, but brussels don't even sell very well for me anyhow. what are y'all's thoughts?