Spring is a great time to create a garden, for vegetables or flowers or both. Get outside with the children and get them into gardening with this fun guide.

Ways to plant

Seeds or plants: Seeds are much cheaper. If you use them, you can start them indoors in small containers, such as an egg carton, then transplant them outdoors after they've sprouted.

Sun or shade: Most plants, especially vegetables, grow best if they're in the sun for at least six hours a day. But many flowers can grow in the shade. Ask for advice at a gardening store, or read the backs of seed packets to learn what to plant where, and when.

In the ground: Pick a spot for your garden plot and mark it off. You'll need to dig up any grass or plants already there, as well as any rocks. Then till the soil, which means using a hoe or a shovel to break up the dirt into nice little pieces. While you're at it, till in some compost or other organic matter to add vitamins and minerals to the soil.

In raised beds: If your yard is too hard, or too wet, or you just don't want to till it, you can build a raised bed: a garden plot a few inches above ground level, enclosed by boards or landscape timbers and filled with nice, rich topsoil from the store.

In containers: If you want to start small, or if you want to move your plants around to catch more sun, you can plant in containers. A container doesn't have to be a flower pot. It could be an old shoe or an old bucket. Just poke some holes in the bottom so that water can drain out and fill with potting soil from the store. Containers dry out more quickly than beds, so you will have to water more often.

Weeding and cultivating: Once a week, use a hoe or a cultivator (that gardening tool that looks like a metal claw) to dig up any weeds and loosen the soil around the plants.

Watering: Your plants need about an inch of water a week. If it hasn't rained, you'll have to water by hand. Just don't blast them with the hose, please. Sprinkle, like a gentle shower. Water in the early morning or late afternoon, when it's coolest and the water won't evaporate.

Theme gardens

Pizza garden: Tomatoes, bell peppers, onions and garlic.

Cinderella garden: Pumpkins and lady's slippers.

ABC garden: Twenty-six plants, from asters to zinnias.

Fourth of July garden: Red, white and blue posies.

Native American garden: Corn, beans and squash.

Bugs you might see

Bees: They'll pollinate your plants for you. And they shouldn't sting if you don't bother them.

Worms: They help keep the dirt loose, so it's easier for the plants to put down roots.

Ladybugs: They eat lots of bad bugs that would otherwise eat your plants.

Butterflies: They like brightly colored flowers with lots of sweet nectar, like purple coneflower and butterfly bush.

Spiders: Yes, they're icky, but they, too, eat lots of bad bugs.

Keep a journal

Keep a scrapbook of your garden. Take notes on what you planted and the weather and draw or take pictures of how your plants grew and what bugs visited your garden. Include pictures and recipes of dishes you used your vegetables in.