Bonni,
My family and I are in your Zone in year 2 of our ambitious kitchen garden. We use organic methods if at all possible. It does take work and with 2 preschool boys we don't have a lot of large blocks of time to work. DW and I take turns working and chasing kids and try to get the boys interested in the process. They have their own pea patch, a 5' stretch of fence line that they tend. You might want to check out the forum on gardening with kids.

We don't have a lot of space in our typical suburban backyard, so last year, I built a 10' X 15' raised bed with homemade compost and topsoil. It's a beautiful growing medium.

Right now, we have in the ground: garlic, onions (2 varieties), carrots, beets (2 varieties), lettuce (3 or 4 varieties), spinach, and ~15 tomatoes. Maybe as many as a dozen peppers will go in a smaller bed and a few pots as well as a few more pots of bush variety tomatoes. Two kinds of mini-melon will go in as soon as I can finish the trellises I'm building to support them, same as the three kinds of summer squash we will grow. I like to grow giant sunflowers in the middle of the raised bed as a centerpiece, at least until a big wind blows.

We also have a very small asparagus patch, as well as raspberries, which did great last year, blackberries that look promising for this year and blueberries that just went in the ground a couple months ago. Two big pots of strawberries produced in late spring/early when last year and are flowering now.

We have a lot of shade in the backyard, so DW's project has been building a bed of hostas, ferns and the like. She also has a very nice herb garden for all kinds of tasty spices.

Finally, I am trying to grow some annual flowers just to attract bees and other beneficials and get some practice.

It's a lot of work, but since I've started growing my own fresh food, it's hard to eat stuff from the store.

You will find lots of good advice here. Sometimes it's conflicting, so you have to go with your best judgement. I find the trial and error method is most rewarding and try to keep track of our progress in a garden journal, but that part of the process gets neglected, which is a shame, because I end up making the same mistakes repeatedly. But something's gotta give.

My only advice would be compost, compost, compost. Read that forum and post any specific questions. You will get a lively discussion and often an entertaining argument.

Good luck!