by Charles Asbury

Created on: December 24, 2008

The Basic Start Up Garden, A Family Tradition
When I was a fireman, I used to get off my twenty four hour shift every morning at 7:15 a.m., come home and pick fresh vegetables for the night meal. What a rewarding way to start the day, and then that night, what a way to dine.
Having your own garden, not only puts fresh food on the table, but it can teach the whole family how to grow their own food. I always included my kids in the entire process of gardening, from planting, to weed pulling, and from taste tasting, to the dinner table. We always ate together, and the only thing more rewarding than the fresh vegetables, were the smiles from the participants in this family tradition.

Set forth in the following paragraphs, I'll cover five vegetables to consider when planning your basic start up garden.
Tomatoes - Lets assume that you're starting a small backyard garden. If that's the case, try growing just a few tomato plants at first. Maybe 4 plants to get you familiar with the production of the plants, and how much space they really require, before trying to expand your project.

If you choose different types of tomato plants that mature over different times, you can stretch your harvest over many weeks, and possibly months. If you start from seeds, be sure to read the instructions, because with different varieties comes different ripening time periods. You will find, that nursery-grown plants are often labeled early, midseason, or late to indicate their ripening periods.
Onions - There is nothing better than that fresh slice of an onion to go on top of your grilled hamburger. With such a wide variety of onions, it is helpful to know what characteristics to consider in selecting them for your garden.

Grouping onions according to taste is one way to select them. There are basically the strong-flavored onions and the milder(and most often bigger)kinds. The mild varieties are sometimes called "European" onions. These include the kinds we slice for hamburgers and onion rings, like Sweet Vidalia, Bermuda, and the big red onions that you might see sliced for salad buffets.
Cucumbers - This veggie is a constant victim of taste tasting in my garden, and there's nothing like sliced cucumbers in a summer salad to beat the heat. There are many different cucumber varieties - picklers, slicers, gherkins, white cucumbers, and more. You even have the "burpless" cucumber, guaranteed not to cause "social embarrassment."
Radishes- From the time I was a little kid, I've loved radishes. My

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