Or, more likely, you've walked through the produce section of your local grocery store and found that you'd need to take out a second mortgage to afford a bag of apples and a salad, and that tomatoes are $1.25 each. Growing your own vegetables is looking like a real, practical, solution to cutting down your food bill. But the closest thing to farming you've ever done is growing a tomato plant in a pot on your porch. And it died.

Growing a garden is easier than you think. With a bit of practice and enough space, you can economically supplement your grocery bill with home grown veggies -- veggies which are healthier and tastier than anything you can buy in the store.

I am assuming you have access to some land -- either a back yard, a front yard (with no homeowner's association to freak out), an empty lot and the owner's permission, or somebody else's yard. Going "halvsies" on a garden with a friend who has land is not a bad idea if you live in an apartment; if they've got the land and you provide the labor and/or are willing to pay for the supplies and seeds, it could be a good deal for both of you. Just make sure they're a real friend and won't eat all the tomatoes come harvest time.

Of course, if this is after the zombie apocalypse and you and your merry band are the only survivors, you can have your pick of farmland. I suggest you find a now-abandoned farm and make appropriate use of it. (And note as you clear out the last pockets of zombie resistance that zombies make excellent fertilizer.) While you're at it, check local feedlots and farms for surviving livestock because a few milk goats and some pigs and chickens would go a long way towards keeping you fed. We'll cover practical keeping of livestock and poultry in another article.

If you don't have land, and it's not a post-apocalyptic scenario with plenty of farmland and no (live) people, you can grow some crops in raised beds on a balcony, rooftop, or patio. However, the economics of doing so largely depend on your access to the raw materials needed. If you have to buy all the lumber, you probably won't save money. However, if you can scavenge some old lumber free, yay! You'll just need to get the dirt, and that might or might not be economically feasible depending on the price of bulk potting soil at your local garden store.

If you put garden beds on a rooftop or balcony, do make sure that the structure can support the weight of the soil. Wet dirt is quite heavy and can easily cause structural damage. Also, provide for drainage of the water from the bottom of the bed in a way that won't damage anything.

The criteria for your garden plot should include:

• Full sun for several hours a day
• Preferably, freedom from obnoxious weeds -- I'm currently fighting a battle with bermuda grass in my own vegetable patch. I will probably be fighting it until the day I die. Roundup is my friend.
  
• Not too many rocks. (You can garden among rocks, but it makes growing root vegetables difficult.)
  
• Decent soil quality. Except for a few limited crops like cranberries, you can't garden in a swamp.
• Defensible from two and four legged thieves.

The two most critical criteria are "full sun" and "defensible." You can fix or work around the rest, though it'll add cost and/or man hours to the project.

Most garden veggies need full sun. There are very few exceptions. Even in Arizona, my home state, which is known for blistering cloudless days, veggies need several hours of sun a day. If they don't have enough direct sunlight, you will have a less than desirable yield. Too much shade and they'll die entirely. If you're planting beside a fence or building, do pay attention to the exposure -- a northern exposure may work fine for a summer garden when the sun is high in the sky, but will not have enough sun for a winter garden in southern climates.

Weeds need to be dealt with before you start, then aggressively controlled. You can't just till the soil and expect them to go away forever. You'll have problems with seeds, and with really invasive stuff like bermuda grass coming back from the roots. Most weeds can be pulled or hoed up as they sprout. However, the best way I've found to deal with really invasive stuff like bermuda grass is to fertilize and water the heck out of the weeds, then kill them when they're growing well by using Roundup. (Glycophosphate.) Roundup isn't exactly organic, but it breaks down quickly and is relatively safe to work with. It doesn't leave a residue in the soil, so you can plant things in beds you've used it without a problem.

After poisoning the growing weeds, I attack any new volunteer sprouts with a hoe. Also, a heavy mulch of straw or compost helps discourage weed sprouts and retains moisture. (If you have a problem with bermuda grass as I do, mulch only encourages it.)

As mentioned above, rocks are a problem for root vegetables. If you have very rocky soil with tons of small rocks, it makes it hard for root veggies to form properly. Carrots can get particularly deformed if they are growing in hard or rocky soil. Rocks also make it difficult to harvest root crops. However, crops like tomatoes and squash and melons will do okay among little rocks as long as you can loosen the soil enough for water to soak in. I've successfully grown tomatoes in ground that was basically decomposed granite, with liberal additions of manure.

If your problem is big rocks, or shallow bedrock with little topsoil, you can build raised beds. You may be able to use your existing rocks to build your beds. It's a bit of work, and adds to the cost if you have buy the dirt, but the end result is attractive and functional. Alternately, you can just work around the rocks, planting between them, if you have enough soil for things to grow. It's not ideal, but sometimes you've got to make do.

Soil quality means well drained, and neither too acid nor too alkali. Heavy clay is bad. (Though I've grown some great melons and pumpkins in heavy adobe soil, with enough compost mixed in to loosen things up.) Sand dries out quickly, though for most things I'd rather deal with sand than I-can-make-pots-out-of-this clay any day. For specifics to your area, talk to your local agricultural extension or the friendly people at your local garden supply business. They should tell you what you'll need do to improve your soil.

In addition to picking a location and preparing the ground, you will need to defend your garden from thieves.

You will need to plan defenses against varmits that would like to eat your crops. However, do note that zombies are not a threat to your actual crop, though they may do damage to plants by shambling around the garden rows. Decent fencing will generally keep them out -- they can and will climb with sufficient motivation (such as your presence on the other side of the fence) but if they don't have a reason to tackle the fence, they'll go around it.

Most pest animals can be dealt with using appropriate fencing. The exact type of fence you need varies depending on your expected varmits. For example, 24" high 1" chicken wire will keep out rabbits, but if you have a problem with elk or moose, you'll need eight feet of chain link and possibly electric fencing.

Ask other gardeners what they've had to deal with, and then plan accordingly.

Theft by humans or vandalism by children is also something to consider. Unfortunate, you can't shoot human thieves, even with an air rifle, no matter how tempting it may be. If the economy gets as bad as I fear it will, I pretty much expect that an undefended garden will be targeted by thieves. Hungry people don't have many scruples when it comes to your watermelons. And I have lost tomatoes and citrus fruit to neighborhood children, who had food fights with them.

To defend my garden against people, in addition to a fence, I have a pair of noisy dogs and security lights. Nobody can get in my garden without being easily seen, and the dogs will raise a huge fuss if anyone sets foot on my property who isn't supposed to be there.

To figure out what to plant, weigh these factors:

• What grows well in your area?
• What's cheaper to buy than grow? (Or what will you save the most money on.)
• What do you really, really like fresh from the garden
• How are you going preserve your harvest?
• Plan for perennials vs. annuals
  

To find out what grows good in your area, ask other gardeners and look at the crops that are grown commercially in your area. For example, the commercial crops in my neck of the woods include potatoes, melons, citrus, grapes, and leaf crops. Sweet corn doesn't do well, however, despite repeated attempts over the years by farmers to grow it.

Cost savings, on the surface, as simple as it sounds. However, it's a situation dependent calculation. If you're just gardening in a small raised bed on a patio, corn is not your best bet as a crop. You might get a small handful of poorly pollinated ears and the cost of the raised bed, soil, and water would far outweigh the return -- even if you managed to scavenge the lumber somewhere. However, at $3.99 a pint in the store, cherry tomatoes might be a good bet (and you can't beat the taste of fresh picked tomatoes) as would beets or chili peppers.
 
Some good, easy to grow core crops that give a large yield for the space they take up include:

• Zucchini
  
• Cucumbers, squash and cantaloupes (grow them on a fence or trellis)
• Beets
• Carrots
  
• Cabbage
  
• Chilies
  
• Tomatoes
  
• Turnips
• Potatoes (grow them in a potato barrel)
  
• Peas
• Green beans
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
  
• Onions
• Brussel sprouts
  

You may also wish to plant leaf crops (lettuce, spinach, chard, chinese cabbage, etc.), regional favorites like okra or rhubarb, or experimental/unusual crops like mini cabbages, broccolini, or pumpkins the size of small cars. It's up to you but do remember that the exotic, fancy varieties may not be as vigorous as the tried and true favorites.

Also, if you have space for perennials or fruit trees, consider putting some in the ground this winter. Many perennials are sold bare root and need to be planted during the winter. This would include fruit trees, berry bushes, asparagus, and strawberries. It may be several years before you get a good yield but once you have a small orchard established, or a nice sized berry patch, you can get some significant yields. I'm planning on planting citrus trees and apricots this year.

You will want to plant multiple varieties of each crop. Sometimes one variety will fail, but another will do well. Also, chose time-honored tried-and-true varieties, not new and fancy ones for the crops you want to try to rely on. The experimental new hybrids can be fun to play with, but you have more chance of success with, say, Early Girl tomatoes or Russett potatoes.

Note what's not on my list of core crops:

• Radishes. A lot of survivalist sites mention radishes as a quick, easy to grow food. Yep, they are. However, many people also don't like them. They can't be stored in the ground for long periods of time. They're really only good for mixing in with a salad -- you can't sit down to a big meal of radishes. (Well, you can, but it seems like a prescription for indigestion to me.) Plant a few if you like them, but don't make them central to your menu just because they're easy. The space is better used for beets or carrots, which keep better in the ground and are a little easier to eat for months on end. And while a beet may take twice as long as a radish to get to harvesting size, you can eat them when they're smaller -- and you can eat the entire beet, including the leaves.
  
• Corn. Only plant corn if it grows well in your area and you have lots of space. You will probably only get one or two ears per plant, and each plant needs a couple of square feet. It also needs a lot of water and it's entirely possible to lose your entire crop to worms or critters. If you have an acre-sized garden in the country it's a great crop. I've you've got a 10X10 patch in your back yard, skip it.
  
• Leaf crops such as lettuce and spinach. I have cabbage on this list, for reasons I'll go into below, but nothing else. In my personal garden, because I have space, I'm planting a little spinach because I like spinach and it's much better home grown than store bought, but if I didn't have the room I'd leave it out. Leaf crops don't store well, are not overly expensive in the stores, and don't have a lot of calories or nutritional value that can't be duplicated with something else. I'd rather have a bunch of peas in my freezer than a bunch of lettuce wilting on the shelf. (Yes, you could can or freeze spinach, but it takes a lot of spinach to make a serving that way.)

Do also note that there are specific times of year that you need to plant things, and this varies widely depending on location. I'm in Arizona, for example, and do most of my gardening in the winter months -- in fact, I'm waiting for it to cool down enough to get good germination on spinach and carrots. It's the end of October and daytime temps are still in the 90's. Conversely, I imagine the growing season in North Dakota is a bit different than that of Arizona, what with waiting for the ground to thaw sometime around the middle of summer and everything.

So, you plant your garden and it's growing merrily and suddenly you have more tomatoes than you ever dreamed possible. Or you discover that zucchini breeds and multiplies overnight on the shelf. Or that a 150 feet of beets didn't sound like much until you pulled all of them up and realized that translates to enough beets to fill a pickup truck bed - how are you ever going to eat them all before they go bad?

When planting your garden, you also need to plan for preserving it.

Your options for preserving vegetables are cold storage, freezing, canning, drying and fermenting.

Freezing is the simplest, and works well for many vegetables. However, if you live in an area prone to prolonged power outages, such as a coastal zone with hurricanes, it's not necessarily the best option. Freezers can also break down or accidentally get unplugged and defrost before you realize it. (I have cats and one of them managed to unplug my chest freezer. I lost a few hundred pounds of meat and veggies before I realized what had happened.) They also cost a bit to run. And if you're concerned about disaster preparedness, and having food on hand for disasters, storage in a freezer is not optimal.

Many vegetables, including potatoes, beets, and other root crops, squash and melons, cabbage, corn, etc., will keep for months in cold storage at temperatures above freezing. If you're lucky enough to have a cool and humid but not waterlogged basement, that's perfect. Otherwise, a refrigerator (perhaps a used, second fridge located on a porch or in a garage) will work.

Canning is a great option for many veggies. Home canning is split into two methods: water bath canning and pressure canning, and you should consult your local agricultural extension or a good modern (published very recently) canning guide book to determine how a particular veggie should be canned, and the exact methods to use. However, in brief, water bath canning is used for things that are acidic and everything else needs to be pressure canned to be safe.

With water bath canning, you put the ingredients in a canning jar, submerge the canning jar in boiling water, and boil it for the prescribed amount of time. To water bath can you just need a big stock pot and some canning jars. Things that you can water bath can include fruit juices and jams, pickles, sauerkraut, and (suitably acidified) tomatoes.

Note that your gramma may have water bath canned tomatoes, but the modern rules for canning call for adding something to acidify it (lemon juice or vinegar) or pressure canning tomatoes. This is rather important; there are quite a few people still water bath canning tomatoes and the acidity may not be high enough. If you water bath can something that's insufficiently acidic you can get botulism. You don't want botulism; it's up there with being bit by a zombie as a miserable way to die.

For non-acidic foods, you must use a pressure canner. This is basically just a just pressure cooker specially designed for canning. You put your canning jars in the pressure cooker, let 'er rip, and the added pressure gets the temperature higher and kills any botulism spores. (Botulism won't grow in an acidic environment, so you don't need to pressure can acidic foods.) Most vegetables fall into this latter category of things that need to be pressure canned for safe storage.

Do get a good canning guide and follow the directions exactly. Home-canned food is perfectly safe if you follow the rules. However, do be aware that people will give you bad advice online. I've seen some outright unsafe suggestions in forums and blogs. 

Drying is pretty simple. You can buy a commercial dehydrator with a fan or a heating element, or you can put your veggies out on trays in the sun to dry. If you put them outside on trays, be prepared to defend them from critters or build an enclosed drying rack. Tomatoes dry nicely, as do herbs and fruits, peas and beans.

Fermenting as a method of preserving your crop mostly applies to cabbage for home use, in the form of sauerkraut or kim-chi. Sauerkraut is simply fermented cabbage and it is dead easy to make. You just chop up cabbage, mix it with a little bit of salt, smash it with a mallet, then pack it into a crock and let it sit for a month. It ferments in its own juices. Kim-chi is similar, just with some added spices. It's almost idiot proof to do.

Whatever option you plan on for preserving your harvest, make sure that you plan ahead. Otherwise, you may find that canning jars are all sold out, the store is out of pickling lime, and you don't have room in the freezer for all your peas.

One final thing I'll tell you is that there is a learning curve to gardening.

While you learn what works for you, you will have crops fail. Sometimes, a whole row of plants will just up and die for no damn reason and there's nothing you can do but pull them up and try again. Or you'll get a pest you just can't beat -- one year, I swear the only thing I could grow was white flies. Then there was the time a freak thunderstorm with lots of hail hit the garden; the only things I harvested that spring were root vegetables. I've lost peas to 100 degree heat in March, and peas to a very hard freeze in the same week of the year a few years later.

When you start out, you'll have failures that could be prevented. For example, I've learned -- the hard way -- that if you put too much heavy mulch on tomatoes and then it rains for a week, they will die of root rot.

What works for your neighbors may not work for you. A distance of just a few feet can mean a different microclimate or different soil or different weeds and insects. Pay attention to what your gardening neighbors tell you, but remember that you may have to modify their advice for your specific situation.

To improve your chances of success, experiment. To avoid a complete crop failure, don't grow your entire crop under experimental conditions. This year, for example, I'm going to try growing tomatoes in a cold frame through the winter so that the plants will (hopefully) be large and really productive come spring -- but I also plan to plant some regular rows of tomatoes in March, after the last frost. I'll see which does better.

You can experiment with soil amendments, cold frames, square foot vs. row gardening, raised beds, sunken beds, mixed plantings (basil and tomatoes, or beans, squash and corn are common), varmit deterrents, pest control, organic vs. traditional fertilizers, and more. Eventually, you'll hit on the right combination. Along the way you will have failures. You may also have some successes you can't duplicate or explain. There are lots of ideas online; use google and see what you can find that you might want to try. Just don't believe all the hype about any one method.

To help ensure that you are able to harvest a particular crop, plant multiple varieties. One type of spinach, for example, may fail or may bolt too soon. Another will grow beautifully in the same year. Do not assume because a crop did well one year it will do so again the next. Conditions may vary. As one example of this, I always plant multiple varieties of tomatoes. One year, under humid and rainy conditions, the most disease-resistant varieties may do best. Another year, the furnace blast heat of summer may come early and you'll get the best harvest from the tomatoes that mature earliest -- even though they don't, technically, have the best disease resistance.

And finally, this should be fun. Yep, gardening's work but the rewards are more than just food on the table. There is a certain emotional satisfaction to be had from seeing a beautiful, thriving garden plot that is flourishing under your care. I know that I love seeing the first little shoots coming up as seeds germinate. Then there's the first squash or watermelon flowers. The first flush of color on an eggplant. The intense flavor of a freshly picked tomato, still warm from the sun. It's all part of the joy of growing your own food.

If you ever see me sitting alone in the garden in the shade of the trellised cucumbers, my eyes closed, covered head to toe in dirt and smelling like tomato plants ... I'm not a zombie, really. I'm just happy with the state of my veggies and taking a moment to enjoy it.