How do I go about planting my own vegetable garden?

I should preface the sub questions by saying that I am absolutely and completely inept when it comes to manual labor. I have no knowledge about gardening or anything of the like really. If you used to go to the older chat room, you remember my “What’s a plunger?” days. That said, I’m an open book and eager to learn and create something new. I get excited when I can say “I did this!!” just like a four year old, so if your advice is feasible (for my strength, time, money), I will definitely try it.

a)What supplies do I need? Give me the bare minimum, anything that I can substitute with other more common tools, I would like to do that. After all, I’m bad at finishing projects I start, there, I said it and so I want to see how long this goes before I go crazy with the purchases. Additionally, I am on a student income.

b)I live in Ohio. The weather is horrible. How does this impact my gardening?

c)What should I start out with? Is there something that’s “easier” to grow or should I just figure out what’s in season and start with that?

d)Where do I buy supplies? Is buying stuff from big companies like Lowe’s a no-no? If so, where else do I go?

e)Is there a site specific to beginner gardeners that I should look at and follow?

f)Just how much time and TLC (tender love and care) am I looking at here?

g)Honestly, this is all I know about gardening: dig, add seeds, add water, and hopefully it all grows in my instant gratification world, it would all be grown and pretty by the next day…ha!, so the point is that any advice that is more specific than that will be helpful! If you know of a book that’s particularly amazing, feel free to recommend it, but I don’t have much time for that, unless it’s a quick Rule book.

Thank you for reading through all that and for your time :)