First time vegetable gardener. This is my experience in growing vegetables in my backyard. I usually forget what I do not write down, so I thought a blog on my experience (or inexperience) would help me remember what I did correctly or what I did wrong.
November 2011 10 foot x 5 foot box garden
I started with a 10′ x 5′ above ground box. Filled it with topsoil dirt and mixed in a couple of bags of donkey poop for fertilizer.
My brother gave me some seeds and saplings from his garden when I was in Arizona. A strand of garlic that was originally from England and has been in our family for 80 years, one onion, a potato, and three strawberry saplings.
Three months later, I was eating some vegetables. I had trouble with a couple of plants, but most of the vegetables did fine. “They” recommend not growing a large variety in one small location, I couldn’t help myself and decided to grow the following:
Why didn’t I put hey arround the garlic? I thought the sun needed to heat the dirt to germinate the garlic seeds. Anyone know if that’s true?
Super Amateur Vegetable Gardener 
I’m still learning.
It just turned March and holly cow the plants I started back in November (shown above) just started gowing like mad. Maybe I should start my crops later next time.