This is the time of the year to be thinking about, or getting ready for winter vegetables. If you have some ground already dug up, now would be a good time to spread some rock dust (as I mentioned last issue). It has 60 different minerals and the major ones (calcium, magnesium and potassium) are in small amounts.

I thought I would talk about soil aeration this time. By now some vegetable gardens would be growing well. One of the things I have found is if the soil is not loosened up around the plant regularly it can become compacted by watering or by the gardeners feet.

After the rain we have had lately, I would not be surprised if you are having trouble with growing things in your garden.

I had a very good question last week from a customer about what I thought about garlic or chili spray because her herbs were okay last week but were being eaten this week. I am not very knowledgeable about sprays because I never used them for two reasons.

I would like to remind you if you haven't already put some rock dust, seaweed or fish emulsion on the soil to keep building up the minerals. Lack of minerals are one of the major causes for all diseases in plants (also with humans) so it is very important to keep feeding the soil each year with products which have a large range of minerals. And now is a good time to do so. Min Plus is a fantastic rock mineral you can purchase at Enviromart Cairns.

On the home front we have started planting our first round of vegetables: capsicums, zucchini, eggplant and sweet potato, in areas we have been preparing for a few months.

We use a rotary hoe, which is going around slowly so that little damage is done to the soil structure. If we do this early enough, the soil has time to compost the organic matter (grass and legumes) in the soil with the help of more rain.