In South Florida humus formation is possible, but shade and leaf litter from trees are vital; the tropical climate here means that soil temperatures can get too high to allow for humus formation. Thus, a soil covering + shade is an absolute requirement to protect against harsh summer sun and late summer downpours.

I get pissed off when people around here insist that the leaves and weeds be scoured away (><) And to think that I'm defeated by ignorant fools!

The above article explains why most of the world's breadbasket regions are in the temperate zone.

I have always despaired of people digging out weeds and throwing them away (except for “Twitch”, I throw that away too). To me it was much needed humus, plus minerals that had come from the soil – surely this practise was depleting the soil in our gardens?

Well, my chance to prove my theory came. Having just been married and moved into a rural rental I was going to have a garden, something not unfamiliar to me as my farther and I had shared a garden for years. But this was MINE!

I was faced with a soil that required every bit of my 100Kg to drive the spade in 50mm. I then had to jump up and down on the spade to get a respectable size spit of dirt to turn over. So this was what I did spit after spit after spit, till I had absolutely ruined a pair of Blundstone Boots. But I did have two beds 3.5mtr x 7mtr, six plots 1mtr x 1.5mtr for zucchinis and squash, and a bed 0.7mtr x 7mtr with a trellis for beans.

While digging a found the soil to be loaded with dock. I had to just dig them in as the soil was so hard I couldn’t do anything else. As you would expect, I had a bumper crop of dock. Every last piece of chopped up dock root grow into a healthy plant.

Docks grew up in among the vegetables and I kept chopping them off and putting them back into the garden. As crops finished I dug the ground over and put the tops of the docks back in. But most of the roots I removed and composted (separate from my regular compost).

The next year was easier digging but heaps of dock. The tops when back into the soil and the roots went into compost. I also prepared another 3.5mtr x 7mtr bed so I had more room to let the dock grow between crops, and hence more green material to dig in.

After a couple more years I found that the garden was starting to produce a lot better. I was loosing some produce to insect attack but not as much as in the first year, and the plants looked healthier. But I now had wild turnip and a wiry tumble weed type thing as well. So they got dug in too.

After another couple of years I noticed the docks were not looking healthy but the vegies were looking, and tasting great. Plus it seems the stronger and healthier the vegetables grew the fewer attacks there were from insects, moulds, etc. So I kept digging in the weeds.

The next year docks were few and far between in the garden. They would start growing, then get black spots on the leaves and die. When I dug them up I found the roots were rotting and had a mould on them. But the garden was healthy and there was very little in the way of insect attack. In fact the only attack worthy of mention was that of the wallaby kind. I put a dusting of cayenne pepper on the sweet corn (skippys favourite), and there was no more problem from that quarter.

But I did have a new weed, a soft sorrel type ground cover. So, you guessed it, I dug it in!