Edible landscapes are everywhere it seems rights now: from the front lawn of the White House to the display gardens of slick design magazines. Each spring seed catalogs highlight new colorful varieties of tomato and pepper to add splashes of vibrant color to the vegetable beds.

Seed catalogs, like Territorial Seeds, offer open pollinated heirloom varieties.

But all this glossy marketing has a real basis in the need for many of us to reconnect with our food sources and ensure that the meals we serve our families are safe and free of harmful pesticides. But the success of any new garden is in knowing the basics and how to get started from the soil on up.

Raised beds are the ideal way to start growing tasty organic food

Vegetables are the true athletes of the garden world. Strong vigorous hybrids bred to perform with the biggest fruits, best disease resistance, and longest harvest. But just like top athletes they need a good diet to fuel that performance. That is why soil preparation is so important to edible garden success. Vegetable roots need nutrients and water available easily to fuel rapid growth; so garden soil needs to be open and full of oxygen. Tilling is the way farmers break up soil, but you can perform the same function with a garden spade, turning the soil one spade depth at a time. Add lots of organic matter like organic compost and manure to feed the new vegetables.

Some gardeners who have some patience have learned that a low-work method gives the same result. It is called sheet mulching or “lasagna” gardening. This method basically covers the existing soil, weeds and all, with thick layers of straw, compost, manure, and good soil to create a “lasagna” layered effect that builds new healthy soil and allows the roots of the vegetable athletes to do the heavy lifting on their own. Young seedlings are planted in this layered mass and the roots eventually delve deep, beginning to break through the compacted soil underneath and leaving airspaces for water to penetrate. New layers of mulch and organic matter are added to the top of the bed every few months, slowly building a deep bed of rich soil without ever wielding a spade. Whichever method you use to create a good garden bed, make sure to add new compost and manure each time you replant a crop.