EAT YOUR VEGETABLES: Maryann James posts on vegetable gardening every Tuesday.

I'm a foodie first, gardener second. In fact, my love of food is the main reason I started to grow vegetables in the first place -- what better way to ensure tasty food than to grow it yourself?

However, I have found that there are many people, especially in the city, who want to plant and just don't know where to start. Enter the foodie connection: epicurious.com.

Epicurious mainly offers recipes and entertaining guides, but they've branched out (ha! get it?!) and are now offering a handy guide for wanna-be vegetable gardeners. They break it down into three parts:

+ What you need to start.

+ How to grow certain veggies (plus recipes).

+ Assorted gardening tips.

Tip #1, "Read your seed packet," could have helped me avoid my cucumber disaster.

As Susan says, it's not too late to get your garden together. So get going!