This CA girl officially has plants IN THE GROUND (Carrots, Radishes, Swiss Chard, Lettuce, Broccoli, and Snap Peas). I also started my peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and cabbages inside, and got a container on my porch going with herbs. Quite a productive weekend!

We are planning our garden now. We usually plant tomato, okra, green beans, peas, butter beans, squash, zuccini, watermelon, cataloupe, honey dew, peppers, and mustard greens. This year I think I'm trying brussel sprouts, lettuce (though it doesn't do well in our climate), garlic, onions, corn and some other stuff we find that's interesting. I also plant snow peas in my front yard and trellis it, and it looks really pretty, and will produce for a long time (nearly the whole spring and summer).

For those with deer and other larger pests problems, I have a solution that is going to sound sort of gross, but it's cheap (lol) and works. Urine. More importantly, human urine. You can either collect some of your own and sprinkle it around the perimeter of your yard, or you can wait until everyone tucks in for the night and send your boys out to write their name in the yard. You just have to keep it up if you have a sprinkler system or rain.

Jealous! I live in MN and we have more snow on the forecast this week… I won’t be doing any planting for a couple months.

We will be having a garden again this year. We have a plot in the back yard where we grew tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, bell peppers, jalapenos, eggplants, green beans, cantaloupes, and butternut squash last year. DH has been working out there this afternoon getting the ground tilled. I am planning what will go where, but I have to find some blight resistant tomatoes this year. We had blight last year, and my garden isn't big enough to be sure that they won't get it again this year. Here's a snapshot of part of our garden early summer last year. I enjoyed it so much, getting out in the garden in the early morning before work was so peaceful.

I'd really like to have a vegetable patch, but I know nothing about gardening. Is is just as simple as figuring the right time to plant for your zone and following the directions on the seed package? Do you have to till the ground, add fertilizer etc? Any tips or books or websites you can recommend?

I'm soooooo jealous of all of you in locations where you can get stuff in the ground. We had a weather tease this past weekend with some beautiful 60* weather...melted a lot of snow...and I firmly believe that I jinxed it by putting my shovel away and washing my car cause it snowed again on Monday!! Us New Englanders are a ways off from seeing the ground yet. I'm anxiously waiting my seeds to be delivered (I ordered from Pinetree Garden Seeds in Maine)
In the meantime I'm still planning and plotting and waiting for my Okra to sprout...that much I've had a chance to get started indoors!

Thinpossible - have you looked at Square Foot Gardening? It gets great reviews, and while this is my first year doing it, it gets high marks from me for ease in setup and available information.

http://www.squarefootgardening.com

This is my first veggie garden, and I was so overwhelmed because I had no idea where to start. This method is straightforward and explicit...gave me a starting place to launch from.

thanks!!

I have sprouts! Radishes are up, lettuce is just starting to come up, and snap peas are clearly visible. Also, my tomato and cabbage transplants have sprouted and are happily growing and awaiting transplant to larger containers.