Look up your gardening zone, that’s important info. Your local extension service is a great resource too. You can find planting calendars for your specific place. Most of your veggies are high sun needs so most likely you want full sun so long as you’re not like in Arizona or something.
Era pause for now
What do you like to eat, in terms of fresh veg? How much time do you want to devote to this?
I vote you start small and ramp up once you figure out what works for you.
+1 to what was already said. look up the state university extension service website, there’s usually a ton of local information. Location will determine what time of year is appropriate for what crops. In southern new england, we don’t plant warm weather plants in the ground (tomatoes, eggplants peppers) generally until mid may at the earliest. I have mine started already but you can buy starts at the nursery, a lot of people don’t start their own. And like said, plant what you like, or it won’t feel worth it. Most fruiting plants need full sun (=8 hours) but in very hot climates this can be not true. Leafy greens often do well in partial sun/shade.
Excited for you and HEARTBROKEN that you didn’t text me directly (jk jk) Feel free to send me questions as things come up!
Best part of the yard: mostly sunny, but we our sun is more sun than most places, so experiment and see what happens. It might be fun to put a pot/movable planters in a shadier spot to see what happens.
What to grow: what you like to eat + what you think is fun to look at. I am just saying that if you grow pumpkins, this fall you can put your baby in a pumpkin patch, but I leave this decision to you. Tomatoes do well here. This time of year you plant foods where you eat the fruit (hot weather crops), in the spring and fall you plant cool weather crops (you eat the leaves).
Season timing: our growing season is short, so if I were you I’d just buy starts next week, spend the week hardening them, and plant Mother’s Day weekend. This maximizes for food volume, you may want to maximize for getting full gardening experience. I’ll find you a link that does timing math for you
Soil: either buy soil with added compost or soil with no compost and add your own, too much compost is worse than too little
Compost strategy: it’s totally up to you! If you want to maximize, there’s tons you can do. You can also just put everything in a pile like I do. In the words of a gardener friend, “compost happens”
Pollinators: I think it’s fun to plant native pollinators, so I’ll send you a link or two of plant lists
Here in CO with the altitude and afternoon heat, I would recommend morning sun and afternoon shade. Keep in mind our sun is more intense and our days are sunnier than in the Northeast, where a lot of sun needs valuations come from. Usual full sun may be our partial sun!
It’s definitely not too late to plant things! In fact anything that isn’t frost-tolerant should wait until mid-May.
Russian sage, lavender, sunflowers, and nasturtium are some things the bees love that we’ve had really good success with. Snapdragons and marigolds are also pretty low maintenance and easy.
I spent years trying to start things outdoors from seed and found for many things it’s easier to start with a seedlings. If I had accepted this for perennials, I might have actually saved money. Sunflowers, squash, and nasturtium have been the exceptions - they do great being seeded straight in the ground. I think a lot of seeds need pretty consistent water to get going, and it’s hard to stay on top of in our dry climate.
With regards soil, I would only use potting soil in pots. If you have raised beds or outdoor beds, I would use gardening soil or topsoil or compost or some combo thereof.
Anti-recommendation - random internet ads, and Home Depot/Lowes/etc. I always laugh at the ads I see on Facebook or elsewhere on the internet that say I should rip out my lawn and plant these other things instead because I know at least some of them would not do well in my climate.
Similarly, Home Depot and Lowes are happy to take your money and frequently have stuff out that it’s the wrong time of year for. They don’t care that the summer growing conditions here are “what plants are happy in a sauna?”, they’ll have whatever they think they can get you to buy. If you’re able to find a good local nursery, that’s where the plant nerds hang out and they’ll flat out tell you (if you ask) if it’s the wrong time of year for this or that thing. For example, in my area it’s so hot that parsley, which should be a biennial plant (live for two years) it more like an annual here. I’ve only heard this from the local nursery but since then I’ve seen that it’s true and I don’t beat myself up about my inability to keep parsley alive longer.
If you can find a local non-chain nursery, they will have people who know stuff.
right now I am playing on the easiest of modes. I’m doing work for a team that I like and who appreciates me, in an area that is mostly ethical, they are paying me well, I have tons of time off.
And yet on Sunday I was still dreading the work I need to pull together for tomorrow morning. I’m enjoying the thinking part and researching synthesis part, but at some point in the next 16 hours I’m going to need to create a deck.
When I was busy working full time, the inertia kept me going, there was always another fire to put out, or thing to figure out. But the start & stop of this, while good in some ways, is not helpful in others. Too much time to think of alternative ways to be using these hours. (Though researching client churn in wealth management companies is fun - where if you have under $5MM in invested assets you’re considered entry level). Not a solution, and I get if empathy coming from me is not helpful, but maybe it is? Planning to switch every 2 years for a bit might be a good coping mechanism.
@Smacky this post was powered by iced coffee & procrastination
In the camp of people who like their work. I don’t claim to like every second of it, especially when I’m getting dragged into people management or meeting-to-plan-the-meeting type stuff, but overall it’s something that I couldn’t do independently, and the things we’re designing are making changes literally around the world. However, my particular field is engineering which I think has clearer direction career-path wise than a lot of other disciplines, and I chose it because of my particular skills/aptitudes as I think did most of my coworkers. Although I know there are a few who picked it for money reasons, and a couple others were given the option of doctor/engineer/<some random third option> from their families so that’s definitely not universal and there are certainly people who are ‘my number is $X and then I’m out’ (if/when it stops being interesting to me, I’ll move to that category and call it, I’m just not there right now).
Having said that, we moved a lot when I was a kid, and the parent whose job we weren’t moving for ended up doing a lot of random things just because a second income wasn’t optional but there was no steady career path for them either, and they always said that as long as they lived in a place they were happy, the job was just something to work through 6-8 hours a day. When the place itself wasn’t great (and there were a few of those), the job didn’t much matter. If you’re happy with where you are and it’s just the job that’s making you unhappy, looking around every couple years doesn’t seem like the worst thing to do. Maybe you find something better, maybe it’s just something shinier for a couple years to add to your savings to the point where you can call done.
There might be a happy medium between both?
I have lots of friends in healthcare who seem to like their balance of hands-on clinical work and office work, and many of those careers pay a living wage or well beyond.
Along similar lines, perhaps you’d enjoy being a vet tech or vet?
My BIL spent 20 years as a carpenter/roofer and has friends who transitioned into housing inspectors (so they use their knowledge of construction but not the heavy lifting) or electricians (manual + intellectual + slightly less heavy lifting).
You are super brave for acknowledging this to yourself. I hope that sooner or later you can find something that clicks much better for you than the status quo!
That is why I ended up in healthcare! And still deciding if I will do a different healthcare later (but the school)
To cool down my hot tea so I can drink it sooner 
Or to cool down hard-boiled eggs!
I do not drink ice water if I can help it—it hurts my teeth.
Oh yes they get heavy use for this too. My toddler LOVES peeling hard boiled eggs
Ice cubes are excellent for pranks.
Are you like, a master gardener or something?!
Sorry to brag but I have signed a piece of paper that says that legally, I can not call myself that! So… maybe.
Early in my marriage I realized that I would always find something interesting to do, and dh would not. Maybe that’s sexist? But it felt and still feels to me like it’s a personality thing.
So that’s part of why I’ve been fine with poorly paid socially responsible employment - there’s always something interesting to do!
Frame that piece of paper and stick it in some dirt!
Oh, I also put ice cubes in outdoor animal (chickens) water bowls during summer.
All the uses for ice are interesting. I don’t use ice for anything. I think my favorite use that was listed was for teething children (as long as its not a choking hazard).