Even the simplest crop takes some effort and thought. In his book The Contrary Farmer Gene Logsdon relates a story of a woman who was giving a potato crop a try, due to it's relative ease for a beginner. Come harvest time she was lamenting how she had screwed up royally and her plants had failed to produce a single spud. She showed the farmer who was mentoring her the potatoless plants. He showed her how to use a gardening fork to recover the crop that was a foot out of sight.

A few good primers on the subject are the above book, Farming for Self-Sufficiency by John Seymour, and Five Acres and Independance by M. G. Kains. For very basic information look at Vegetable Gardening For Dummies. It has a ton of great info and a nice little section container gardening - good stuff for apartment dwellers or folks who don't want to tear up the yard to see if gardening is for them.

Ed