Gardening in the Tropics

Where I live, it's somewhere between tropical and sub-tropical - that's in summer anyway. In winter I think we may be more like temperate - trouble is, it's a really short winter, so while it gets very cold (I'm talking Australia cold here, so no snow or anything too extreme!)it is for such a short period of time, that I can't really grow anything designed for the temperate regions, but it's too cold for tropical fruit and vegies. We don't have too many frosts, so I can get away with a bit.

Anyway, today I was going to talk about summer growing. In past years, I had decided that you just couldn't grow anything from about November through to February in the vegie garden. Well this year I'm changing that attitude! What we do need is lots of water and shade in some areas, some of the time! I'm just starting to have a little trouble with shield bugs, but apart from that I'm doing okay. We are currently eating:
Beans (snake beans) I've got climbing and bush beans flowering, but no fruit yet.
Zuchini
Squash
Warrigal Greens
Brazilian Spinach
Water Spinach
Amaranth - the leaves are cooked like spinach
Silver Beet
Lettuce
Basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme - my parsley is really struggling
Spring onions and chives
Chillies
Perenial Capsicum
Cherry Tomatoes - romas and black krim still green
Asparagus - after the rain we had a few come up
Sweet Potato
Carrots - although I've just picked all my last ones and so have to wait for some more to get big enough!
Garlic - just starting to pull the last ones.
Pawpaw
Strawberries - only the odd ones now.
Not ready yet, but will be over the next couple of months - banana, mango and custard apples are flowering, cassava, ruhbarb, pumpkin are also growing.
So I suppose I need to revise my idea of being able to grow food over the summer. I just have to remember to water, water and water....and try and battle the shield bugs!