PLAN AHEAD | My garden plan (above) helped me with every-thing from how to space my plants to when to put them in theground and where. You could draw up a plan on graph paper orgenerate one using an online garden planner like I did. I usedgrowveg.com, which lets you customize a large garden space fromscratch. Gardeners.com also offers a planner that is good forsmaller spaces and has preplanned gardens to keep it simple.

3 VEGETABLES TO START EARLY | These veggies love coolweather (you can plant them a few weeks before the last frost) andgrow quickly. So plant them first and you’ll enjoy the rewards ofyour work in a hurry.Lettuce: I planteddifferent typesof lettuceall overmygarden,wher-ever I could find room. It’s forgiving and grows fast enough thatyou’ll beharvestingyoung leaves for saladswithina fewweeks.Plantseeds every twoweeks in the spring so youhavea constant supply.Turnips: I never thought of them as a spring vegetable so I was sur-prised to harvest turnips before anything else. They take about amonth from seed to harvest and have a peppery and sweet flavorwhen they’re picked fresh.Peas:We squeezed ours in close together and they yielded poundsand pounds of sugary sweet snap peas. Pea plants producemore incooler weather than they do once it heats up. And by the heat of thesummer, they’re prettymuch fizzled out so you can plant a late-sea-son crop in their spot.

READING AND REFERENCES | The Vegetable Gardener’sBible by Edward C. Smith (Storey, 2009) features his WORD sys-tem—Wide rows, Organic methods, Raised beds & Deep soil. Itsapproachable for beginners and insightful even for experiencedgardeners. Detailed plant profiles are an easy reference.

If your idea of a vegetable garden is a beautiful, whimsicalspace that not only provides food but is an oasis in your backyard,you’ll find inspiration in gardening guru Ellen EckerOgden’s latestbook The Complete Kitchen Garden (Stewart, Tabori & Chang,March 2011). She includes 14 themed kitchen gardens, from asalad lover’s garden to a chef’s garden, along with garden plans,plant profiles and recipes to use up the harvest.

Connect with other gardeners. In EatingWell’s GardeningWell online community you can meet and ask questions of othergardeners, share your tips, photos and videos: eatingwell.com/go/gardeningwell.

3 BASIC TOOLSTrowel:Use to dig small holes for planting transplants.Stirrup Hoe: Pull up young weeds at the root with just a gentleback-and-forthmotion.Garden rake: Level beds and filter out large stones that may inter-rupt seedling growth.

SEED SOURCES | One of our favorite organic seed companies,High Mowing Seeds (highmowingseeds.com), now offers cus-tomized EATINGWELL seed collections, such as the Garden StarterCollection and the KitchenHerbs Collection.

Specializing in Asian vegetables,Kitazawa Seed Company(kitazawaseed.com) is a great place to find off-the-beaten-pathitems like Chinese celery and Shiso leaves. The company wasstarted in 1917 in San Jose, California.

The best reason to start your own garden: tomatoes. I loveGaryIbsen’s Tomato Fest (tomatofest.com). He offers over 600 organicheirloom tomato seeds suitable to grow in almost any climate orany space, including rooftops and patios. —H.M.

SPRING INTO GARDENING | All you need to get your garden growing, from the ground up

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CORN

PEAS

CABBAGE (FALL) EGGPLANT

PEPPERLEEK

SWISSCHARDBRUSSELS SPROUT

SUMMER SQUASH

ZUCCHINI

CUCUMBERLETTUCE

BEETS

BEANS (BUSH) BEANS (DRY)

WATERMELON

MELON

POTATO

BROCCOLIRUTABAGA

CELERIAC

CARROTTOMATO

ONION

ONION

CAULIFLOWER

CELERY

TURNIPS

8' X 3'

0' 5' 10'0'

5'

10'

15'

20'

15' 20' 25' 30'

33' X 24'

3' X10' 3' X 10'

8' X 8' 8' X 3'

8' X 3'

8' X 5'8' X 5' 7' X 5'

7' X 5' 8' X 5' 2' X 22'

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