We recommend that you consider raised bed gardening. There are many reasons for this - good aeration, good drainage, a quantifiable area to add compost and soil additives, a deterrent to foot traffic, a visually stunning area, etc. If you don't want to go through the trouble of making boxes (a one-time chore), at least consider another intensive method, such as french intensive (or double dug trenches).

For the small scale gardener, some four foot by four foot squares will do. Use can use almost any kind of wood or vinyl (I recommend that you stay away from pressure-treated wood for garden boxes to avoid the leaching of chemical preservatives into your soil). Consider the height of the box, too - you need a minimum of six inches up to a maximum of twelve inches. Measure, cut, drill and screw together (use self-tapping or pan-head screws when working with vinyl). For the more serious gardener or market gardener, consider four by twelve foot boxes with a few cross beam supports along the bottom.

Then prepare your soil. Mix topsoil, compost, vermiculite or perlite, and peat moss together on a tarp with a metal rake (to save time, but not money, buy bags of premixed organic soil mix). Adjust the percentage of each based ingredient based on your geography - arid places will require the addition of more peat moss (up to 40%) and cold, rainy places will require less peat moss (as little as 10%). You can't go wrong with a lot of compost! Buy different types of compost to increase the likelihood of a balanced diet for your plants, too. A basic mix would consist of 20% organic soil, 30% compost, 30% vermiculite and 20% peat moss (it need not be exact!).

This assembly coupled with the buying, hauling and mixing of the soil ingredients sounds like a lot of work. Try to break it up - do the construction of the boxes one afternoon, the purchase of the soil ingredients in two different trips to the home store, and mix the ingredients for one box in a few hours of the morning on a different day - you will avoid frustration and aches this way. And think of it this way, if our three-year old daughter can do it on a tougher job (i.e. four elevated four by four foot vinyl boxes in an afternoon), you can too!

You want to optimize your fruit and vegetable yield - you don't want to give away all of your boom crops just because you're sick of all of those zucchini! Raised bed gardening is relatively easy, but you should be the one to benefit. Anticipate your needs, plan on growing about 10-20% more and preserve any remainder. You'll thank me in February when you still have your homemade tomato sauce!

You can also extend the season with cold frames and other contraptions that enclose your crops.

There is a great planning tool for use with raised bed gardening (or an intensive gardening method) at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p-ppWqZLtyxFxvD4IMKZjWg.

For now:

Try to eat as much of the fruits and vegetables fresh and uncooked as possible. Try to eat your homegrown food on the same day, if possible - nothing beats freshly picked produce - not Whole Foods, not Trader Joe's - nothing.

Cut vegetables into manipulative sizes for use with dips, light dressings and hummus and serve as a healthy appetizer. Serve with organic 100% whole wheat pita or cut up and heated tortillas. Or make a killer salad. In the colder months, consider stews and soups that incorporate garden ingredients as whole as possible.

Beans, beans. They're good for your heart ... Yes, the staple of many vegan diets, beans are also a key player on the homestead, too. Grow alot of beans, eat a lot of beans and store a lot of beans. Garbanzo, pinto, and kidney beans are a must! Great bean entrees include modified versions of chili, burritos, casserole, etc.

To increase cooking efficiency, get a solar oven (free energy, generally longer cooking times) and/or a pressure cooker (more in utilities, quick turnaound time).

For later:

Buy an extra freezer. It only costs about $10-15 in electricity to run it per year (if you keep it closed, well-stocked and well-maintained). You can freeze almost anything - corn, green beans, spinach, etc.

Buy canning and jarring equipment. This way, you'll be able to store anything!

Commercially available organic food is expensive relative to the cost of conventional food. One rationale for this is that organic growers work harder to produce their products. This is true, but probably not for the reason that you were thinking. Organic growers generally don't receive large governmental subsidies, don't have good access to federal grants and loans for land acquisition, and have to act more like a business to survive than conventional farmers. Think about it - big farms get paid big dollars not to grow something while smaller organic farmers struggle to get their products to market! So what you're left with is the collective offerings of many good-willed social entrepreneurs and more and more big corporations looking to ride the wave.

I, personally, can't see why organic meat and poultry is so expensive regardless of the prevalence of subsidies and poor farming methods of livestock in conventional food systems. So I only occassionally purchase it (or in smaller quantities). Dairy products are also expensive, but with little ones in the household, this is tough to avoid. Prepared goods are actually coming down in price in many markets (especially with the offerings by big retail operations like Walmart). And produce prices are sort of stagflating - some things are 20 cents more a pound and other things are double the price.

In terms of limiting exposure to potentially dangerous chemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers, you should take the advice of the Environmental Working Group:

Buy only organic types of peaches, apples, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, pears, imported grapes, spinach, lettuce and potatoes.

If you can't afford to purchase all organic food, then you might safest with buying the following conventional produce: onions, avocados, frozen corn, pineapples, mangoes, asparagus, frozen peas, kiwi, bananas, cabbage, broccoli and papayas.

Grow Your Own Food and Buy Organic!