Simper Living
By Fiona Wagner • Bankrate Canada

I ooh and ahh as I turn each page, showing my object of affection to anyone unlucky enough to be in the same room as me. I say things like, "How about we try this one?" or "That looks fun" or, my husband's favourite, "Maybe the kids would actually eat that."

But the choice is mine alone, as I'll be the one babying seedlings and slogging it out in the garden. And to be honest, I'm finding it hard to make selections.

While I'd eventually like to become so successful at growing food organically that I can take my excess to market or sell it directly to local businesses or consumers, this year, this garden is just for us. I need a chance to learn more about the soil, the bugs and the local growing conditions, and that means starting small.

According to Jennifer Bennett in her book, The Harrowsmith Northern Gardener, "Great expectations may be inspiring, but they can also be intimidating. To expect that your first garden will look just like the one Aunt Minnie has been tending since you were knee-high to a Colorado potato beetle is an invitation to discouragement."

She quotes a horticulturalist at the University of Michigan, who says, "First-time gardeners, particularly, tend to take on larger gardens then they can handle. A workable rule of thumb is to decide how large a garden you think you can handle and then cut that roughly by half."

Making a list, checking it twice
I'm something of a list girl, so in order to get a handle on what I wanted to grow in, I took inventory of the vegetables that we eat, enjoy and purchase most often. That means tomatoes (cherry, plum and big, juicy beefsteak sandwich-making varieties), carrots (enough for the horse, donkeys and us), corn, cucumbers (pickling and bush), lettuce (crisp head and leafy varieties), onions (green, yellow and red), garlic, garden peas, beans, pumpkins (for carving and cooking) and squash (I figure it's a gardening rite of passage to complain about having too many zucchini.)