It is hard to give accurate advice if we don't know where you are. Have you already bought seed? Peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes should all go in containers, and should probably be started indoors and grown under lights. If you don't have seed yet, buy a few plants and put those in containers when the time is right in your area. Peas should probably be planted already. You won't get many from that size bed, especially if the warm weather continues, so plant all of the peas on one side of the bed or in the center. Broccoli and cauliflower will take up a lot of space, so only plant a few seeds at a time, but do it every month. Spinach is best to grow in spring and fall, it will bolt quickly in summer. Carrots are the hardest thing on your list to grow. They must be sown in place for best results, and properly watered and thinned. Cucumbers should be sown in place, they don't transplant well. They need warm soil to germinate and grow well, so you may be better off waiting - everything depends on where you are.

I think you should start small and easy to see how you like the additional work. I think you ask a very good question so here's why I grow certain things: - tomatoes, like everyone else, plus I discovered oven drying paste tomatoes is a great way to preserve. They take up less room in the freezer. Plus I found a curried cherry tomato recipe that makes an excellent sauce similar to chili sauce. I like it on breakfast sandwiches. You might find you love salsa but it's not something we eat much of. - peppers: I grow a wide variety since I found a local grower who has an amazing selection. We love peppers. To freeze, just stem, seed and cut in slices. Stick in a freezer bag. Last year I discovered a recipe for roasted red pepper soup. Yum! - herbs: you'll use more fresh herbs if they are right outside your door. Start with the familiar ones. - summer squash: easy to grow and the abundance always launches my zucchini recipe frenzy...everything from pickles to cookies, to side dishes. My DIL makes zucchini relish. - bush beans: I have found the filet type is my husband's favorite. He likes young, tender beans. I do not preserve them so I don't plant a lot. - sugar snap peas: one of our first fresh vegetables here in NH. Expensive in the store. Tastier grown at home. - strawberries: we all love them. I don't grow enough to freeze. - blueberries: I'm just starting out. It might have been smarter just to go to PYO places. Very easy to freeze. - spinach: This may become my favorite garden crop. We have to sow it early (like now) to get a good crop. Last year we had a very mild winter and my August planted spinach wintered over. I think I picked some for salad in March. This is in the category of wonderful things from the garden that are possible even in March in NH. - beets: boy, we love beets and beet greens. I still have some in the frig from last fall. (I think they're still ok.) I'm experimenting with cold storage. I had some in the garage for part of the winter. - lettuce: I'm real iffy on this. First, finding a flavor I like and one that doesn't go bitter. There is so much the average growing book doesn't tell you. I think I need to be more careful about which ones to grow at different times of the season. - winter squash: the bugs did in most of my crop last year but I've found two varieties that are fantastic keepers. This means I can stick squash in the basement all winter and still have some in March. No freezing. No canning. To me, this is an ideal vegetable if you have the room. - parsnips: another vegetable that improves with over-wintering in the garden so we can eat fresh as soon as the ground thaws enough for digging. - kale: my husband hates it. I love it. I brown bag my lunches so I'll grow a little bit for salads and sneak some into occasional soups. - cucumbers are ho hum for us. I really liked a particular variety, poona kheara, but my husband is not a big salad eater and hates pickles. - I also love rhubarb but my husband hates it. The asparagus bed would be wonderful if I hadn't botched starting it in the first place. Probably not good if you have limited space. We do not grow corn because of critter problems. It's much easier to buy at the local farmstand. onions: we eat a lot of onions but I haven't learned the knack of growing a decent sized onion. I should grow lots of scallions because I use them a lot. What I have found is that an abundance forces me to find new ways to use something. I try not to grow too much of anything but I'm always surprised. I thought tarragon flavored sugar snap pickles were wonderful but nobody else did. It is so much fun in summer to pick a fresh pepper for our grilled hamburgers. This past winter I have learned to make my own pizza dough so this summer I will make and can pizza sauce, trying to duplicate our favorite brand (Muir Glen). Happy Gardening!

Dawn, sounds like you had a good year, all things considered! Our spring/summer garden was fairly pitiful. The only thing that produced was salad greens, walking onions, and garlic. We got only a gallon or ywo of summer squash before it went kaput. Tomatoes never did get it right after the rainy setbacks but we did get a decent flush this fall, enough for several days of good eating. Melons, not so much. Beans & cukes were a complete bust. The fall garden is seems to be doing better. Peas, cabbages, and cukes are showing promise, summer squash has just started putting lots of goodies, and salad greens are up a almost ready to start cutting. Walking onions and herbs are doing well now and I'll be setting out the garlic before much longer. The chiles finally started taking off in late summer so we've had a decent harvest of those and they're continuing. Spring = Fail. Fall = Much Better. Diane

I want to thank each of you for graciously helping this lurker. I really appreciate it. Here's the report card for my piccalilli. Taste "B"; Appearance "C-". Effort Required - Exhausting. And that's graded with the back-in-the-day scale when a "C" was a shame and only 96-100 was an "A" - and grades were not given on a curve, either. My first piccalilli attempt is not the piccalilli of my childhood memories, due to my own fault, but it's not too bad either. It's spicy and edible. It will be eaten because I try very hard to not waste food. The recipe was to make nine half-pints. I wound up with 14. ??? The "Grinding/Chopping" of the veggies was the hard, and time-consuming, part of the process. The blogs make is sound sooooo easy! They lie! LOL I was hoping for a "salsa" type chopped veggie mix. I think the pieces should be about 1/4" square, give or take. I'd rather them be bigger than smaller. I spent more than two hours trying to get the KitchenAid grinder assembled and tested; I was about out of patience before I even began. I've had the grinder attachment for several years and had never tested it. I had never even opened the box. Of course, when I did, the manual was missing. Thankfully, I found a PDF manual on line. I could not remove the grinder "worm;" it was lodged in tight. Then the assembled unit would not fit into the front of the mixer body correctly. Even Wes, as strong as he is, was barely able to push it in. I'm calling KA later about the problem. Hard-Learned Lesson #1 - Anytime I purchase an accessory or a new gadget; I will test it immediately. It's too late to return this part now, and even though it was 60% off, it was still a waste of money and storage space. When I did get the KA grinder in place, with the "course" blade, it made juice from my green tomatoes. I can see it would have some uses, but not for piccalilli. LindaC; TeresaNC7; CiLantro; and Annie1992 - Can you think of anything I could have been doing "wrong" with the KA grinder? Any tips you have would be priceless to me. I moved on to the food processor. I tried "chopping" with the medium shredding disc first; the bits were still too fine and juicy. I then put in the steel blade and "pulsed" as several people suggested. That was the best result so far. A bit mushy, but better than the KA. 1bPod - Great minds think alike. I kept thinking "Knives, Caroline; knives!" We must be from the same generation, I've seen Mr. Diamond in concert back in teh day. Yes, he sang "my" song!" To me, of course; at least in my mind! LOL Have you seen the movie, Unconditional Love with Kathy Bates? By now I was exhausted and just wanted to get "Day 1" prep finished. I would have pulled out the old, iron, hand cranked grinder - but I was just too tired to haul it up from the basement. I do believe it's going to be the correct tool for this job. It's the one several other veteran canners, and my Mom, reccommended. Hard-Learned Lesson #2 - I have too many kitchen toys. I would have spent less time and had far less stress if I had just pulled out the huge, sharp chef's knife and sliced-and-diced the veggies. We dinasaurs have to stick to what we know! LOL Next summer I will make another batch of piccalilli. I'll use the iron hand grinder, attached to the kitchen table and arm powered...just like our Grandmas did. They knew their stuff! I've made notes all over my recipe sheet. I'll plan it for a day when Wes will be home; maybe he'll enjoy "cranking" the grinder. LOL