Pest Control & Biodiversity

You may be wondering why or how these to things are linked and why they are important for maintaining an organic chemical free garden in the tropics. Just as we need to maintain maximum biodiversity on earth to keep a wide gene pool for the continuation of life in a changing enviroment. We also need to maintain maximum biodiversity in the garden to stop any pathogens and pests destroying food crops.
It's easy to do this below ground by adding organic matter eg compost,manure etc that the microbes thrive on. Billions and billions of microbes make your soil a micro dog eat dog cosmos - it makes it difficult for any one bateria or fungi to take over and become a pest as there are so many competing for space.
It's more difficult to achieve this above ground but you can lay the foundation on the ground which will then increase the biodiversity above ground as the amount of insects and spiders etc also compete for space. You can then use inercroping and 3 - 4 year crop rotation to help or to keep it simple not growing the same type of vegetable in the same spot year after year or consider adding ducks to the garden.
So the foundation starts with the below ground micro cosmos and goes from there.

Incidently I discovered a great way to add some carbon rich newspaper to your compost.I had a pile of newspapers wet with the recent rain. After mowing the lawn I took them out and scrunched them up on the lawn and ran over them with the mower - made a big mess but I had some ready chopped carbon to add to the compost.