"A 50 cent hole for a 5 cent plant" — old gardener's saying
There's more than a grain of truth in that old saw. The key to a bountiful garden is the soil, not the plants. Healthy seedlings and transplants are important, but not as essential as having healthy soil to plant them in. The elements necessary for good soil are organic matter (compost), oxygen, and top mulch as a nutritional "blanket" that leaches nutrients down to the roots and keeps the soil warm and moist. Take a look at your dirt before you plant anything. Most gardening books recommend getting your soil tested at a local nursery to determine any deficiencies, but eye-balling it should be good enough for the beginning gardener. There are two extremes that are easy to recognize: hard, red soil indicates heavy clay, and light-colored soil indicates too much silt or sand. The soil in your planting bed should be dark, rich, moist, and crumbly, with lots of "humus" to protect and nourish tender roots. Humus is organic matter, and this is easily supplied through compost and oxygen.
Compost
Don't throw away those orange peels, coffee grinds, bread heels, and eggshells — toss them on top of that pile of leaves and twigs right outside your kitchen door. What could be more fun than creating a big mess for a good cause? It's hard to compost if you live in an apartment, unless there's a community garden in the courtyard (there's an idea...), but anyone with even a postage stamp of outdoor space can compost to create humus for the flower pots or garden.
There are several ways to make a compost pile. You can build a short 3 x 3-foot fenced area in a corner of the yard with one open side; use two hay bales as a backing corner. Or you can just throw your materials in a general area (be careful to keep it away from wood fencing that could rot). Turn the pile with your digging fork once a month to aerate, add leaves and grass clippings as much as possible to keep the "fires burning," and keep it moist to encourage decomposition. Add animal manure whenever possible — bat guano is supposed to be the best, but turkey and cow manure are affordable and available. (Throwing dog feces in is controversial — use it for the flowers, not the vegetables.) Anything that was once living can go in the pile, but avoid fabrics, dyed paper, and meat products (which will attract animals and flies).
After six months, the stuff underneath the pile should look pretty dark and crumbly — ready to use as fertilizer in your garden plot or containers. Mix it up thoroughly with your soil (about a 30-percent compost, 70-percent soil mix) and water deeply before planting.
Mulch
Mulch is like a blanket over the ground — it keeps your plants warm in the winter and cool in the summer by holding in the moisture. Top-dressing the bare soil around the plants after cultivation also helps with weed control and soil erosion, yet allows the earth to breathe. Mulch can be made of many things, like large pine wood chips, alfalfa hay, some compost, pecan shells, or even corn cobs. Do not use artificial mulches or plastic to cover the soil; the whole idea behind mulching is an exchange of useful nutrients and oxygen. Besides, plastic is ugly.
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