Building Your Soil

Those people who are said to have a "Green Thumb" simply know the importance of looking after their soil. If it's going on down in the ground your plants will florish. Look at a tropical rainforest the lush green trees are in a symbiotic relationship with our bacterial ancestors and fungi the trees shield the soil food web from the blazing sun, takeaway the tree and it all slips into the ocean and is good for nothing.
If you have a thriving food web in your soil shield it from the sun with a thick mulch you'll be rewarded for your efforts with a plentiful harvests.
The tropics is particularly hard on soil the rain leaching nutrients down to where plants can't reach and the sun beating down making it difficult for the micro flora to surrvive. To overcome these obsticles add organic matter to the soil and when not in use during the summer protect the soil by covering with mulch or growing some kind of legume that can be dug into the soil before you plant your vegies,
this is known as green manure.
Soil organisms play a big part in soil formation,structure,fertility and plant growth.Micro-organisms start the decomposition process when organic matter enters the system. The soil food web starts with microflora including bacteria and fungi primaraly begin decomposing organic matter in the soil. The microfauna like protists,nematodes and micro arthropods then feed on the bateria and fungi in their lif cycles releasing all the nutients a plant needs.
The addition of organic matter is the base on which the soil food web surrvive, from the simplest bacteria through to larger insects. The lagest store of nitrogen and phospherous on earth is in fact soil bateria which according to Mary.E.White store up to 60% of these elements in the soil, wow they really are the basis for life on earth.
The addition of organic matter to the soil also maintains the PH at an optimum level for plants. Organic matter coupled with some form of nitogen rich manure is a great basic for your soil food web.

One thing available to us here in Cairns are palm fronds. I utilze these by stripping the leaves off whith a machete (the hard stems are put in a place to break down slowly) and leaving at the bottom of my chicken coop. After a couple of months the constant scratching by the chickens begins to break them down. The nitrogen rich manure and the carbon rich leaves are a perfect match in the compost heap with the addition of water really heats up and breaks down quickly.
Once it's brocken down add to the garden. I also add all my vegie scraps, fruit peel, tea bags and coffee grounds to a large bucket of worms and after a few months the castings are a great addition to the garden - check out how to start a worm farm.
If that sound to hard just throw all your scraps in a bottomless bin set outside on the soil and the worms already present in the soil will come and get it, don't throw them away.

I've seen a couple of books that advise to run over the fronds with a lawn mower, don't you'll wreck the seals and stuff your mower.
A machete is very easily sharpened with a $5.00 file and is much cheaper than a mechanical chipper and less maintenance.