A few years ago, I decided to plant a square-foot garden. We built a frame, improved the soil, planned our grid, and bought and planted seeds. We got some herbs and sugar snap peas. Everything else eluded us that first season. Chiggers made it hard for me to tend the plot as much as I needed to, and horn worms took care of the rest.
So over the past couple of years, I’ve only grown sugar snap peas. Their season is early enough that I don’t run into many chiggers, and I love fresh peapods. Everything else I gave up on and decided to invest that money with the Farmers’ Fresh pros instead.
mmm... peapods
Still, we’re getting back to gardening this year. I’m hoping that my husband can take over the summer gardening duties, and maybe we can grow more stuff this time It would make a good complement to the CSA subscription. We could grow stuff we really like or stuff we could freeze, like tomato sauce. I’d love to grow tomatoes and basil. After watching a pot of fresh tomatoes cook down to nothing last year, I realized you can never have too many tomatoes.
our 2'x8' container garden
Chris read about a system for growing potatoes. You start with one frame and keep stacking dirt and frames as the potatoes grow. Then you harvest the frames as you need them from the top. I figure it’s worth a try.
the first potato frame - sans potatoes
thoughtful consumption 
My big problem with growing stuff (well, besides not having anywhere convenient that gets a lot of sunlight) is squirrels. The squirrels get into my potted herbs and dig and destroy them. Do you not have a problem with squirrels or have you found a way to thwart them?
We’ve got a bajillion squirrels, but they haven’t wreaked any havoc for us. I don’t know why. Maybe nothing in our garden has been interesting enough.