I am not the first to say that planting a garden is one of the first prep skills that one should learn. As mentioned in a previous post, there are many benefits of growing your own food. And obviously, just having lots of varieties of seeds on hand is not enough, it's also necessary to have experience actually growing your food, literally getting your hands dirty, if you want to have an abundant crop.

With every kind of plant having it's own particular requirements, such as how best to germinate the seed, when to plant, sun and water needs, days till harvest, pest control, etc. There really is much to learn before you can ditch the grocery store for good.

But even if you're already an expert gardener and have all that knowledge and skill, you'll have trouble with your garden if you don't have some essential equipment and various preparations made.