Excellent advice, Blast!
One of the first things I would do is have a soil test, and see if your soil is seriously lacking something. Here in the Pacific NW, our soil is quite acidic, and all the rain we get washes out the calcium and magnesium, so we have to add dolomite lime. The test should show what is right and what is wrong, and offer suggestions for improvement. Your local Cooperative Extension Service can either do tests, or tell you who does. Here is western WA, they cost about $8. Ask for instructions on how to take the samples correctly.
Most vegetables prefer a soil pH of about 6 to 7, but are relatively tolerant except for extremes. Blueberries and potatoes prefer acid soils, cabbages and cucumbers prefer neutral to slightly alkaline soil.
You might consider growing organically. It's no more complicated than chemically-oriented gardening, but it is considered healthier (when eating AND dealing with the chemicals), it improves the soil, doesn't contaminate water sources, and if you have kids around you don't have to worry much about them getting into toxins. Plants that are growing well and have access to all the nutrients they need have far fewer problems with disease and insects.
Iron-phosphate-based snail and slug baits are non-toxic to kids, animals, and soil. They just break down into soil nutrients. Scatter thinly. It's the only way we can grow lettuce here.
The main three plant nutrients needed are Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potash, there are lesser minerals also needed, and a larger group of trace minerals that are only needed in tiny amounts.
Natural sources of nitrogen are rotted plant residue: grass, weeds, straw, hay, and plant waste from food production; manures, which are best composted to destroy pathogens and weed seeds (rabbit & llama manure can be used fresh and straight); and legumes (clovers, peas, beans, etc) and other select plants that draw nitrogen out of the air and "fix" it in their roots, usually acquired by planting cover crops.
Natural sources of phosphorus are bonemeal and the rock phosphates.
Natural sources of potash are wood ashes, greensand, Sul-Po-Mag (sulfate of potash magnesia. Sul-Po-Mag is a rich source of potassium, sulfur, and magnesium). [Don't go crazy with the wood ashes.]
Natural sources of calcium are dolomite lime, or gypsum, a calcium/sulfur material. Ask which is best for your soil. Bone meal is also a good source.
If your soil is low in magnesium, a light application of plain old Epsom Salts will do fine, as long as you don't overdo it. A half-cup scattered over the entire root zone of a blueberry plant every two or three years is enough. MORE IS NOT BETTER!
Trace minerals, without getting into specific needs, can often be supplied by kelp meals and fish emulsions.
Most vegetables are annuals (you have to start fresh each year). Asparagus, artichokes and rhubarb are about the only perennial vegetables (grow for several or many years). Tree and bush fruits tend to last for quite a few years, strawberries tend to produce well for only 2 or 3 years, but will sometimes survive for longer. Tomatoes and peppers are really perennials, but we treat them as annuals because they are tropicals and don't tolerate cold at all.
Pre-started plants can be easier for beginners, as you have to start many popular things like tomatoes, peppers, leeks and melons indoors (or in a greenhouse) from two to eight weeks ahead of actual outdoor planting, and without good light they just won't do well inside. You can buy just as many plants as you need. Look around for local small nurseries, as they tend to grow more varieties than the big-box stores, and they can answer many more questions.
Save money by buying seeds of beans, peas, corn, radishes and salad plants, which are pretty easy. Carrots can't be transplanted, need a good, deep non-rocky seed bed and have to be kept moist for 2-3 wks for germination, but if you get it right, they're a very good crop for growing at home.
Potatoes are excellent for planting in new ground (not previously planted to crops; turned over sod, rototilled weeds, etc). Get egg-sized 'seed potatoes' from a nursery.
Peas & beans: Pay attention to whether you're buying BUSH peas and beans or POLE varities, which need something to climb on and can grow ten feet tall. Put your supports for pole types in before or at the same time as planting. Bush varieties are usually planted about 2" apart and they all hold onto each other for support.
Peas, spinach and lettuce can be planted as soon as the soil is thawed. Here in the PNW, peas should be planted in the first two weeks of February. SNOW is okay as long as the soil isn't frozen.
Lettuce: don't make the mistake of planting it all at once. How many plants can you eat a week? Plant just a few every week.
Spinach likes short, cool days, and goes to seed in long, warm ones.
Corn: always plant in blocks (5x5 plants) instead of long single rows. If you've got the space, plant an early variety, a mid-season variety, and a late-season variety. As soon as the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear, the soil is warm enough to plant the early corn. Ten days later, plant the mid-season corn, and ten days after that plant the late-season corn. Corn is a food-hog, so you'll need fairly good soil, plus manure, compost or side-dressing with diluted fish emulsion.
Plants grow, flower, grow fruit, then go to seed and die. You MUST keep harvesting to keep the plants producing, ven if you just compost the harvest; if you don't, they will think the season is over, go to seed and croak.
Once plants are up and growing, mulch heavily, gradually building up the mulch layer to eight or even twelve inches deep, depending on the plant. Ignore everyone who says tomatoes and peppers (etc) need bare soil for heat from the sun. The constant stress of dry/wet/dry/wet bothers them more than shaded soil.
Mulch is nearly anything that is plant material: straw (shredded dry straw is wonderful), hay, weeds, grain husks, coffee grounds, cut grass (applied in thin layers or it rots too fast and stinks), leaves, pine straw, fir needles. Sawdust and wood chips are mulches too, but they require nitrogen to break down, and will take it from the soil (where the plants need it). They are best used as pathway materials (on top of a thick layer of newspaper or some cardboard to smother the weeds), or put just on top of the soil in a thick layer around shrubs and trees. The nitrogen-robbing only applies to these last where the wood product actually touches the soil, and shrubs don't usually have the high nitrogen requirements that vegetables need for their short growing season. Pine and fir needles, and oak leaves, are quite acidic, and do very well for mulching blueberries and potatoes, but also do well mixed with other mulches.
Mulches can be all one material if you are limited in what you can get, or they can be mixed, or they can be layered. Pull up a stray weed and lay it on top of the mulch, and it has become mulch. Mulch breaks down and feeds the soil, fast or slow, depending on the weather, so you have to add more to keep up the depth. Thin mulch allows sunlight to hit the soil and allows weeds to sprout, and also allows the soil to dry out, so keep it as deep as you can. Mulches aren't rocket science: keep it deep, keep applying it.
Compost isn't rocket science, either, it's just decomposed plant waste. Mother Nature has been doing it for millennia with her eyes closed. Shredded materials compost more quickly than large lumps, so it's best to put branches in a separate pile. Compost can be made from all one material like livestock manure or weeds, or from an extremely wide range of materials such as weeds, straw, moldy hay, grass clippings (again, keep them in thin layers), moldy alfalfa from your rabbits, poopy straw from your chickens, leaves, vegetable trimmings and parings, coffee grounds and tea bags, some paper (newspaper, office paper, cardboard egg cartons, but not to excess), pine needles, old fruit, more weeds, chopped up natural-fiber cloth (cotton, linen, wool), egg shells. With the exceptions in the following paragraph, if it came from the soil, it can usually be returned to the soil. When you think of it, scatter a shovel-load of soil over the compost pile, to add microbes, grit and minerals. If you know your soil is short in something, toss a handful of it into the compost occasionally.
Killing manure pathogens: Complete pathogen destruction is guaranteed by arriving at a temperature of 62C (143.6F) for one hour, 50C (122F) for one day, 46C (114.8F) for one week or 43C (109.4F) for one month. To heat up all parts of a compost pile (which will be hot in the center and cool on the outside), scrape off the outside materials and put them on the ground beside the original pile, then fork the rest of the contents on top. Doing this a few times will kill pathogens and most weed seeds.
Meat, fats and bones should be kept out of the compost pile if you will get all upset when a raccoon or opossum or neighbor's dog gets into the pile and spreads everything everywhere to get to them. They WILL compost, but they are best put into a covered, actively-working pile just to keep the work and frustration to the minimum. Treated wood/sawdust has no place in the vegetable garden. No toys, cans, glass, asphalt roofing, polyester hats, rubber boots, elastic, etc.
Like Blast said, the perfect garden doesn't exist. I can grow asparagus, but radishes, commonly known as the easiest veg to grow, seems to be beyond my capabilities.
How to Grow Vegetables, just click on your veggie of choice:
http://www.farm-garden.com/growing-vegetables/Improve pollination with wild bees:
http://snohomish.wsu.edu/mg/ombblock/ombblock.htmRemineralizing the soil:
http://www.remineralize.org/climate.phpHarvesting rainwater (which is 20 times as pure as any groundwater)
http://rainwaterharvesting.tamu.edu/drinking/gi-366_2021994.pdf (Note: if your area has acid rain, don't worry about it,
just hang a net bag of cheap limestone chips in your
collection container)
Permaculture (permanent agriculture)
http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/perma.htmlhttp://www.permaearth.org/Drip irrigation
http://www.dripworksusa.com/Garden Web Seed Exchange, no money involved, if you say you're new to growing, many generous souls there will send you free seed, esp if you send them a stamped, self-addressed, PADDED envelope (you have to sign up, but it's free; if you pay, they say you don't get the annoying popup ads). Registering gives you access to all the forums.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/exseed/Plants for a Future
http://www.pfaf.org/And for cooking all your crops, make yourself a cheap solar cooker:
http://solarcooking.org/plans/
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