How often do you get half way through making dinner only to find you are missing an ingredient? Or open your vegetable crisper and discover that the lettuce you intended to use was no longer useable? With a smaller amount of space than you would ever imagine you can have fresh, healthy produce at your fingertips.

The first consideration in planning a garden is plant selection, and the first rule is growing what you like! I can tell you how easy it can be to grow radishes, but if no one in your house likes to eat them your experience of gardening will be less than satisfying. Take some time to think about the vegetables, herbs or fruits you eat most often, then start with two or three of them that are easy to grow. Commonly used vegetables that are easy to grow include beans, beets, carrots, chard, chives, cress, endive, garlic, lettuce, mustard greens, okra, onions, peas, potatoes, pumpkins, radishes, and spinach. Many of these, such as lettuce, radishes and spinach are so easy to grow that, in mild climates, they may self-seed and grow perpetually.

The next consideration is the location of your garden. While most plants will do better with long, sunny days many can perform just as well with as little as eight hours of light per day. An open south-facing garden can receive up to 16 hours of light daily, whereas an eastern or western exposure will likely be shaded for a good part of the day and reduce light hours to 8 or less. Even a north-facing garden may receive good light in the early morning or late afternoon. In hot climates the mid-day shade of a north-facing garden may mean being able to grow lettuce or spinach which prefer cooler weather.

Of course, plants and location are nothing without soil and people often have difficulty seeing their available soil. Most of us think of gardens, remember the huge plot that grandma tended and become overwhelmed with where to plant. After all, if I tear up the front yard to plant pumpkins where will the kids play? There are no rules to say your garden has to be all together in one big square, or even dedicated to just growing food.

That one foot wide strip of grass that is such a pain to mow along one side of the driveway can be converted to a row of potatoes or an aromatic herb garden. The flower border at your front door could include shrubby okra with it's gorgeous hibiscus-like flowers, pretty flowering climbers such as beans and peas, or the bright cheerful colors of swiss chard

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