In an effort to feed my family healthier meals (sans the pesticides and preservatives), I am going to grow a fruit/vegetable garden in our backyard and an herb garden in one of our front yard flower boxes.  I am hoping a garden will also help us save some money on our produce since we have been juicing and eating a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables.  I have been scouring books and websites to figure out how to do this successfully. I am a complete newbie gardener and I’m honestly a bit intimidated by this endeavor. So far I have consulted the All-In-One Garden: Grow  and The Complete Gardener.  Both of these books are chock full of gardening knowledge, especially when it comes to selecting items to plant.  They both discuss how you can plant fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in the space to create a useful and beautiful garden.  I think I benefited more from the All-in-One Garden because the Complete Gardener seemed to be written for more experienced gardeners who wanted to update and improve their current garden.
This is the book I REALLY look forward to reading: All New Square Foot Garden. I put this book on hold at the library and have a feeling I may need to purchase it and refer to it throughout the spring/summer. I have some friends who have used the square foot garden method and seemed to have done well with it, so I think this will be my starting point. I have already checked out the website and it seems to be a good fit for my current gardening goals.  We have a great spot off our patio to plant a garden (where my husband recently cut down a tree). Thanks to the previous owners of our house, we already have tons of beautiful flowers outlining our backyard as well. I gather from my gardening research that some of these “beautiful” plants are also functional for cooking… such as my favorite for viewing, lavender.

Anyway, I will try to keep you posted on my progress. I am also investigating composting and rain barrels… lots of work to do in the next few weeks!  I am really excited… I can’t wait for all this snow to melt and for spring to pop up!