Herbs are dead easy to grow (and terribly expensive to buy) and you can start them in a reasonably sunny window with no problem. Or just wait until it warms up a bit and do pots on the patio.

If you build a raised bed (use 2x4s, making one side no longer than 4 feet, the other side as long as you want, fill with dirt), you have a few more options. If you paint the sides black, it'll heat up earlier in the spring than the rest of the yard. Or you can be super-ghetto and put saran wrap over the top of it (with a few holes for air) for a larger version of the ghetto greenhouse above.

(Note that putting impermeable plastic over a section of ground and leaving it once it gets hot it a kick-ass way to kill everything under the plastic and sterilize all the weed seeds hiding there, so you don't want to do that to anything you're growing on purpose.)

If you're really cool you build this thing called a "cold frame" where you hunt for people's old porch windows and prop them up on a couple of 2x4s and then put that over your bed and it's like a shabby chic version of the ghetto greenhouse, but that seems like way too much work to me. I just wait for it to get warm enough to plant things.

"Remember when you did crap like this in first grade?"

Hell, I remember doing it in college! Kind of.

What kind of "herbs" can you grow in this thing?

Not only cheap and easy, fresh herbs taste so much better than dried.

Even if you don't have a yard or a lot of space, growing vegetables in a container is easy. I've grown tomatoes, jalapenos, habaneros, basil, chives, assorted herbs, strawberries, cucumbers, and more in containers on a deck throughout the years. You just have to make sure you get the variety that can handle growing in a container.

I remember doing this in 2nd AND 9th grade.

Yes, the majority of the kids in my school were treated like retards.

@seacub - Ha!