Picture picking juicy, red ripe cherry tomatoes fresh from tall, over head high plants and popping a few in your mouth as you meander through the garden.
And there are also handfuls of long green beans, big round peppers and bright yellow squash ready for cooking. This could be your yard -- your spring garden.
Today, with the emphasis on fresh, organically grown and pesticide free vegetables, there should be lots of interest in planting a garden. But at a recent "hands up" survey taken at an Orange County Extension horticulture program, only about 12 out of more than 60 residents attending indicated they would be planting vegetables this spring.
Could it be that everyone else doesn't have the time or maybe the skills?
Gardening is not like it used to be either. Thirty years ago the average size garden was about a 1,000 square feet. Today, it's less than 200 square feet.
If you don't have room for a traditional garden you might try growing your garden in a container. If you like beans you can grow four beans to a pot and harvest 32 beans per plants. That's more than enough for a meal.
In modern, greatly shrunken landscapes you don't need a special spot devoted just to vegetables. A garden can be planted where ever you have room. All you need is a sunny section of a porch or patio for container gardens.
A little ground along a walkway or among shrub plantings can also be utilized for vegetables.
Timing of the Florida plantings is one of the secrets to success. Vegetables can be planted year-round, but in March it's time for the warm season crops of tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, squash, peppers and more.
As the days grow hotter, it's best to avoid crops that need the cooler weather including carrots, cabbage, broccoli, radishes and lettuce that locally are planted during the fall and winter growing seasons.
It's also hard not to notice but most Florida soils are quick draining almost sterile sands. These soils can be enriched with compost, peat moss and potting mixtures. This helps improve the poorer garden sites by providing water and nutrient holding ability. These enriched soils also foster the growth of beneficial organisms and retard nematode activity.
Gardeners planting in containers should use large pots filled with a good potting soil. Avoid using yard soil or purchased top soils that may contain insects, diseases and weeds.
Containers that were previously devoted to flowers or vegetables should be emptied, cleaned and then filled with fresh soil before planting.
When the soil is ready, you can begin the plantings. If you are cramped for space and only need a few vegetables or if you are in a hurry to get the garden growing, most garden centers carry transplants of the common vegetables.
A few like beans and corn are almost always planted from seeds but with most other crops you have a choice of planting techniques.
Once the crops are in the ground and growing you need to check the garden on a regular basis to make sure the soil remains moist and to control weeds. In the sandier soils you may also want to feed the crops every three to four weeks with a general garden fertilizer.
Container gardens have to be checked daily for water needs. Pots dry out a lot faster than in ground plantings. The plants also rely heavily on fertilizers and should be fed every week or two with a liquid fertilizer solution.
Home vegetable gardening should always be this simple, a lot of fun and an educational experience for the whole family. And just in case you wondered, don't expect to save a lot of money. But Home grown vegetables taste so much better and can be picked when they are really ripe.
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