Easy steps to keeping a kitchen garden

Keeping a kitchen garden can benefit your pocketbook and your health.

With some simple planning and a little bit of space in the yard, you can have a garden that will keep you fed all year long.

Start with seeds
In more northerly zones, buy and start seeds in February or March. Warmer zones might start even earlier.

Seeds offer great variety and they are much cheaper than starts. You can get just what you want including heirloom veggies. An envelope of seeds can cost $5, but you get about 50 seeds. If you can’t use all of them one year, keep them cool and dry and your investment will span two or more seasons.

Cold-hardy plants
Begin with a few plants that do well in the cold and can be planted as soon as the ground is thawed and workable. They include lettuces, cabbage, spinach, and peas according to www.botanicalinterests.com.

By late spring, you can be picking a salad from your garden each day.

In late summer, you and the kids can snack on grape tomatoes right out of the garden.

Warmth-loving seeds
Start seeds that are less cold hardy at a sunny window inside or sow them directly in your garden when it is warm enough. Squashes, pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers need warmer temperatures.

Berries and herbs
You can buy a flat of strawberry plants and each year they will come back and spread. A blueberry bush will do the same thing. Most herbs work the same way. A small mint plant will come back every year and spread. The same is true for oregano and other herbs.