Feed to eat well
Would you feed your child once and then expect it to grow properly? - of course not.
However, when it comes to growing food many people feed the plants when planting and then sit back waiting for a bountiful harvest to appear and then, when it fails miserably, they wonder why.
It is the quality of the soil that makes or breaks vegetable growing.
I have mentioned this before in a previous post, but something that I saw the other day reminded me that this should be said over and over again if I want to encourage new gardeners.
The most important ingredients necessary for a good soil are organic matter like compost, soil microbes and fungi and good drainage.
Compost must be good compost which contains vital ingredients that will benefit plant growth - some composts are devoid of any real goodness and that is why it is important to purchase good quality bags from reputable suppliers.
Better still, wherever possible, make your own.
By raking up leaves and putting them on to garden beds continuously will create that wonderful leaf mould which is full of the necessary fungi and microbes necessary for healthy growth and if a good compost is added on top of this, your plants will thrive.
Cover your soil at all times -do not dig the soil - just let nature do what it does best.
Making sure your soil is continually being fed with organic matter means that plants never have to be stressed, will grow well and produce good harvests.
You've been visited by @minismallholding from Homesteaders Co-op.
When I lived in England I could grow almost anything with very little effort. I didn't realise just how much nutrition the plants actually needed because the soil was always good enough and damp enough for the nutrients to be accessible. Moving to South Australia was a huge learning curve. Keeping the soil damp enough for the bacteria to keep making any nutrients there available for the plants is the thing I find the hardest come summer.
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Yes, I can imagine that growing in Australia is a lot more difficult.
I would add, making sure the soil is balanced and has all the needed nutrients. My soil has been continuously farmed since the 1670's, mostly with tobacco and corn. It is the 7th best soil in the world, per National Geographic survey.
But it is VERY unbalanced. I know this because I do yearly soil tests that include all the micro nutrients, something land grant university tests don't do. I've been working since 2010 to bring it into balance by slowly adding the missing nutrients. As it comes closer, my disease and pest pressure lessens and in some cases, disappears.
This means the plants have reached the 3rd level of health. Many growers have never seen plants at the 3rd and 4th level of health because the soil will not support it. It has been too heavily "mined' for decades or centuries.
I have all your other ingredients, but it never helped the high disease and pest pressure I had from 1992 until about 2015. Balancing the soil is the missing ingredient.
Yes it does not happen over night, but you seem to be doing everything right - as to the "over mining" I agree and it is so sad as chemical fertilsers are what most crops are fed on and organic farming pushed aside to the detriment of the consumers.
I've seen some videos where people turned some fairly awful looking dirt into really nice soil. Mostly it was your advice, but they also mixed up what they grow a lot. The natives of Canada had something called the three sisters - corn, beans and squash, which thrived together. Beans also attract nitrogen fixing bacteria. Further they would mix waste into the soil to make it better. Modern farming usese chemicals and science which also works, but costs a lot more.
Yes, the three sisters way of growing is being used by many people - and works very well.
Nature provides us with everything we need. It's food, love and peace!
Oh how I wish that we could all have just that mind set!