Beginner Potager Gardener

I've started to plan a garden. I've chosen to take the economical approach and start seedlings of the plants i want to grow indoors, in my basement to be exact. Little did I know how much the cost up front would be. But regardless, i'm thoroughly excited and can't wait to start planting.

I'm going to probably end up planting too many things at first and overwhelm myself but i can't seem to narrow my selection of seeds down any further.
I plan to grow:

carrots
a mix of hot peppers
sweet peppers
hybrid tomatoes
cold set tomatoes
cherry tomatoes
spinach
lettuce mix
snap peas
eggplant
garden peas
corn
a selection of herbs

I'm very excited about this but i'm also a bit anxious about the whole thing. Anxiety has crept in b/c well what if the grow light I'm going to invest in doesn't provide enough heat to get the roots established? Or what if I get all the plants established and when i transplant them in the ground, they all die. Crap! Well nontheless I'm going to move forward and if i must i will go to Oakland Nursery and buy new plants, if of course i can come up with more cash hah!

Like I said though I'm very excited as well. The plan for my garden is to not sow traditional rows
of seedlings but instead to create a potager garden or as what some refer to as a square foot garden. Check out this link to see what Wikipedia says about potager gardens...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potager_garden. Make sure you clink on the square foot gardening bullet point and check that out too, it's pretty cool.


I plan to create two 3'x3 'squares and then divide those squares into 9 separate 12"x12" squares. In each 12" square i will plant a vegetable. I'll probably plant my tomatoes in the middle though since i'll have cages and they together will create architecture and thus be aesthetically pleasing.

My 3'x3' squares will be raised beds. I purchased two recycled plastic raised beds that will not deteriorate and can be disassembled and stored away if necessary. I hope to buy two more of these next year if I'm successful this year. I also plan to create two more raised beds with some old bricks and cinder blocks i found in my garage last summer. So when my raised beds are together and the seedlings are planted and hopefully thriving my garden will consist of 4 squares that form a square themselves but there will be a walking path between each bed. The purpose of the walking path is to allow you to weed more easily as well as keep an eye on your plants for rodent or insect infestation.

Jason was going to hit the large home improvement store around the corner this coming saturday and buy the necessary components to build me a grow light or two but with the time it takes to build the light, including the electrical components and install it and then purchasing the bulbs, etc. I decided to just do some research and I managed to find a grow light that seems to be around what we would've spent at the home improvement store and he's grateful for not having to devote time to building those (plus he has a substantial "honey do" list already.)

At any rate, i'm going to try to find some information on potager gardening & square foot gardening and then post it on here.