Seed Raising And Summer Planting

Here in Australia we are technically in the last week of winter but because I live in the sub-tropics we are actually in spring already and only weeks away from summer if I had to guess since strawberry season has started.  You see we really only get a few weeks of spring and autumn, about 3 months of winter and about 7 months of summer.
In the past few years I have been caught out and one minute it is winter and the next we are into summer temperatures and I do not have my summer veggie seedlings ready.  Because the nights are still cool it is hard to get summer seeds like capsicums, tomatoes and eggplants germinated in time for the warm days so this year I am trying a different strategy.
I am still raising most of my veggies from seeds but I have also purchased a small number of more advanced seedlings that are already about 15 cm high that I have planted out this week.

Capsicums, eggplants, lettuce and basil with a whole
lot of self seeded coriander at the end of the garden bed.

The last of the winter veggies coming on are now sharing the garden
bed with lettuce, capsicums and zucchini.

When raising seeds I find the easiest way is to raise then in a foam box with a deep layer of seed raising mix which you can rad about here.

We have had some great rain here over the weekend and so It looks like I got my seedlings in just in time on Friday.  They have all been well watered in and now I just need them to grow as fast as they can because I can't wait to eat some tasty beefsteak tomatoes.

Are you thinking about summer veggies yet?