Now that spring is arriving, many folks are looking at the idea of a garden. If you have never had any type of garden then start small. You have to keep up the weeding and critter control to get enough of a harvest to justify the effort. You can garden with about $20 worth of hand tools and a few pots, add to your stuff as you need it.
I tend to think in terms of what do I LIKE TO EAT? You will not suddenly develop a liking for stuff you've never tasted. So plant and tend what you like. I love homegrown tomatoes, yellow squash and onions and will happily eat them either plain or fancied up in various recipes. So those are what I plant in my little space I have the time to tend. And wait to plant until about 3 days AFTER the usual last frost date (and check the weather channels 10 day outlook!) and you will avoid all kinds of trouble dealing with frosts and chill.
When I needed to shade some windows and walls to prevent high power bills caused by using the AC I planted climbing beans on the trellis made from the frame of an old mattress. Even something ugly is nice when covered in a green plant. You can find out if a mattress company in your area will let you have the metal frame for a dollar or two. Or trash pick one. Those beans provided several meals and lowered the electric bill by about 10% by absorbing the hot sun and creating a cool shaded place beside the house wall.
When you plant, remember that the critters love nice vegies too. If you plant where you walk everyday on the way in and out of your house that will tend to help scare away critters. And some things like tomatoes you can pick as the are ripening so the birds miss out on the ripe ones. Try hanging red Christmas balls on the tomato vine before you have tomatoes, birds will try to eat them and give up. You may need to put up netting and a small fence to protect your food.
If you live in town, check out Lowes etc and ask about "broken bags" of peat, manure, topsoil etc. You can often get a 40# bag that is missing just a tiny bit for half price. If you invest in big pots or planters remember that you will be able to re-use them for many years. You can grow almost anything in a pot as long as you put in good dirt, water it, have drainage so the plant won't drown and it gets enough sun each day. A packet of seed can plant 2 years worth of garden spots.
A point or two to think about: A rain barrel can let you water your food plants even if there is a watering ban. You just open the downspout and put the barrel under it and you can link barrels together. You can also mix food plants in with your landscaping. You can put potatoes or strawberries in as ground cover, bean plants as vines on trellises, berry bushes in as foundation plants and fruit or nut trees out in the yard as part of the landscaping and for shade. A point to keep in mind is that you should consider the waste a tree will leave before you plant it near doors or windows.
An apple tree may produce 300 lbs of apples in a 2-3 week period. You cannot leave them on the ground unless you like bees, flies, wasps etc around you, and the mess can get slimy if you don't keep it picked up and can really stink and get tracked into the house. A pecan tree on the other hand causes no mess that is nasty, but it does attract squirrels and in a high wind the nuts falling can sound like you are under attack and the tree gets BIG. You can can, freeze etc or pick and barter your fruits and nuts. And some apple/pear etc are varieties that are good keepers that will hold in a cool, dark room for 3 months. But there is a deep satisfaction to walking around your home and picking your snacks and eating them sun warmed and totally ripe. You cannot buy anything that tastes that good - to ship it they have to pick before it's ripe.