Most beginning gardeners start off with dreams of baskets of bountiful vegetables, eating fresh salads from their gardens, canning a year’s worth of salsa from their own tomatoes, onions and peppers, or picking bouquets of peonies, roses and hydrangeas to decorate their dinner table. And social media is all too happy to sell them that dream. But the reality is, that dream doesn’t happen overnight, and it’ll turn into a nightmare pretty fast if you don’t start off right. The very first thing...

It's really easy, with the first rush of spring flowers and the budding of trees, to go a little crazy with garden plans. The home improvement stores are full of pansies and other cold-tolerant flowers. Fruit trees sit in their gallon pots to tempt you to find room for just one more. The seed racks are full of the promise of fresh salads and canning days. It's important to keep your garden goals at the forefront of your mind, in order to avoid wasted time and money. Every gardener has...

When it's time to start seeds indoors, I try to keep my setup simple, cheap and small. Here's how.