The president is digging up the White House lawn to plant a vegetable garden. Some researcher claims that a small plot (I forget how big) can save you $2150 in grocery costs. I've read and heard so many reports exhorting the virtues of planting a vegetable garden that I quit paying attention.

What I haven't found is a report that includes the W words like work, weeds or worms. Let's face it, flower gardens are much easier. We usually mulch them to keep the weeds down and few insects or diseases bother most of our flowers. In the vegetable garden one is constantly swinging the hoe and each swing brings new weed seeds to the surface. Insects and disease also seem more prevalent.

Last year with a minimum of neglect and a couple of weeks on vacation, much of my vegetable garden could have provided the lead article and the cover photo for Big Weeds Weekly. if there was such a publication.

If you are a veteran vegetable gardener ignore my mumblings. If you are new and excited I'll offer some advice. Start slow or small and don't believe everything the media or the seed catalogs claim. Of course, what follows is the gospel truth.

Lettuce (seeds or plants) and spinach (seed) are easy and are great if planted before April 15 or after the first week in August. In the heat of summer they want to flower and develop a rather bitter taste.

Peas, beans and onions are also easy. Peas (seed) can go in the ground now and I have had some success with August plantings for a fall treat. In several weeks, string beans (seed) can go in and you can make several plantings before August 1 if you wish. For onions, buy a few onion sets.For tomatoes, peppers and eggplants (all transplants) wait for warmer temperatures. I might gamble with tomatoes toward the end of April but would wait for a week or so into May for the other two. If you are averse to spraying, look for disease resistant varieties.

Cabbage (anytime), cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts (all transplants) are best grown as fall crops but you can often have success in the spring. You will have more worms in the fall but a word of spring caution is never to plant when the yellow mustard is blooming. There is a root maggot that hatches about then and will devastate new plantings of cole crops.

All I can say about radishes and, especially, carrots is that we don't have the climate or soil to do them well.

Melons, cucumbers, squash and pumpkins (seeds or transplants) do well for a while but will eventually lose the battle to fungus diseases without a bit of chemical help, especially in wet years.

Potatoes (small seed potatoes) and sweet corn (seed) will both thrive on lots of fertilizer. Watch out for potato bugs. The best spray-free, worm-free sweet corn is harvested in the second half of July. Earlier faces a small, first generation of worms. Later, you face a monster second generation of worms.

I ponder applying for a grant to hit $2200 or seeking the job of White House vegetable gardener, but I guess I will just plug away trying to continue the tradition of not buying seasonal vegetables and stocking the freezer with peas, beans, corn and the like.