Help, i'm a noob where do I start?

I was talking to a friend yesterday about some of the more basic parts of gardening, and although many people have written on where to start, it's not always easy to find.  So the goal of this post is to go over some of the basic details if you're just looking to start already.

This is the kind of cool stuff you get to see with gardening.

Where do I start?
Step 1 - What kinds of plants do you want to grow?  Most people start with tomatoes, peas, squash, and beans.  These are all great, they're easy to find, and there's a lot of info about them.  But are there other things you want to grow?  Asparagus, onions, :) garlic :), that's fine too, i'll show you how to look up the needed info. START SMALL - pick 2 maybe 3 things.  For sure pick tomatoes :), and if it's fall pick garlic :).

Step 1a - If you know you're going to want strawberries, blueberries, grapes, asparagus, any fruit trees, or most other kinds of fruits, you'll need to get these in this year too, because they take years to get fruit from.

Step 2 - Now that you have your 3 things go to Gardenate.com's Zone finder.  Find your zone.  Your zone helps you know when you should plant things.  So you need to find your zone.  In gardenate, click the zone that works for you.  Missouri is 5b.

Step 3 - Click on your zone on gardenate.com, and then click on the veges and herbs tab at the top.  Find your 3 plants 1 at a time.  In zone 5b, peas should be planted in march, april, and/or may.  So now you know right when to plant your plant.  I would also recommend that you read through the info on the page, it's pretty nice.

Step 4 - Deside if you want to do a raised bed garden, or just til up some land and plant.  Either is fine just depends on how you want things to look (there are other reasons to do each, but this isn't the post for it).

Step 5 - Get as much compost as you can get your hands on :).  There are often places on craigslist that sell compost by the yard.  If you have a truck get a truck load or 5 :).  You can't put too much compost (depending on if it's manure or not, you don't want too much manure) into the ground, plants love love love compost.

Step 6 - Plant, and make sure you keep it watered.  You should water, in general, at least 2 or 3 times a week unless it rains.  Don't let things get dry.

Step 7 - Pick food :).  No really, pick the food.  With things like tomatoes and peas, you need to pick the food as soon as it's ready.  The plants whole point in life is making seeds, they make seeds and then die.  The pea pods are the seeds, the tomatoes are the seeds, if the parent plants think they got the job done, then they feel free to die to allow their kids to take the place.  We don't want that.  So as the tomatoes get red and juicy pick them, if they get beyond juicy the plant may stop fighting to make more tomatoes.  So pick your food.  With peas, make sure to check them every day when the pods start coming.  And don't feel bad getting early pea pods for your stir fries.

Other things to consider:
Write down what you do, when things happen, and what days plants die.  Write down when they first let fruit, when the lettuce leaves first become big enough to enjoy, etc.  You'll want to know in the future how long things take in your garden, and a journal helps you year after year.  And, during the winter :) on days like today :) read more and learn more for the next year.