Hi Ketch! It is so exciting to start a garden! I would love to be able to help you out! If your goal is to be able to grow your own food the best layout and type of gardening would be square foot gardening. it really makes the most of the space that you have. Raised beds are great and the plants grow so much better. Finally something that really helps is companion planting, planting plants that help each other out by repelling different pests or dieases. I do this with my garden and I do not have to use any chemicals or have any issues with pests at all. Also look into using vertical space for gardening. So like tiered raised beds, pots or hanging planters. Please feel free to take a look at my trade list I would love to send you out some seeds! http://members.gardenweb.com/members/exch/bplace

I thought you might like to know that there is no way to email you they way your preferences are set. I suggest you go to the bottom of any page here and click on 'Member Pages'. then Edit Preferences. Then using the drop down box, set it to show your email addy to Members only. then check the box to allow others to email you via the forms here at GW. That will place a link on your member page so folks can reach you. You might also want to (while you are there) fill in your gardening zone, and your state abbreviation. I for one (and some others too)prefer to trade some things with members that are 100-200 miles away, as opposed to 1000-2000 miles or more. Often if I can't tell where someone is located, I just don't reply to threads started by traders. Happy gardening and trading! Sue

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When we moved out here to the burbs from Hyde Park, I knew nothing about taking care of plants, and especially in this region. I lived in the Arizona desert for 15 years before we moved here. I'm a nature lover and interested in wild and cultivated plants, but really -- no experience. (My mom can make a popsickle stick grow. Obviously that skipped a generation.) I did try to do it myself at first. Midwestern plants and landscapes are great, so I was interested. I acquired a veritable library of books geared to Chicagoland gardening, a membership in the Morton Arboretum, but I still just did not know where to start. Too many freakin variables. We decided to take a landscaping class at the parks district here. The teacher of that class had been a horticulture judge at the Kendall County fair for 20 years and has her own design business. Six months after we took the class (the next winter), I called her up. Even after the short course, I still felt adrift. She specializes in natural gardens and works for the forest preserve district as well. Anyway, to make a short story long here, we got design help and installation help, but I take care of the plants now. It's really kind of like if we moved into a house with a garden in place. I am still learning, but I love what I see.