Kudos!

..the entire garden was made of buckets! Filled with wonderful veggies and flowers. It was really pretty..I may try that.

the squirrels and opposums find it and eat it down to the ground overnight.

Hate to be a downer but you got a heck of a row to hoe if you're going to plant all that.

I converted a section of my side yard to vegetables starting last year. So far the powdery mildew has taken my cukes, squash, okra and sweet peppers.

I have 4 cherry tomato plants and two heirloom tomato plants that are bearing fruit. Still green at this moment. I harvested about 60 carrots, only around 30 of them were of any length. Lost my beet crop to a smack of hot weather two weeks ago. Out of 8 eggplant plants, I have two remaining but the fruits are small about 3 inches long. definitely not enough to feed two of us let alone a family.
Hmmmmm, something ate my strawberries(that was quick) My bush beans got rust and never recovered.

I'm not growing fruit trees of any type.

We're in a moderate drought and I don't have a well so I save rain water. I have a 400 gallon storage of it. It goes away fast.I hate to pay the sewerage charge to the city for water that percs in to the ground. I'm trying to work out a gravity fed drip irrigation system. Haven't come up with one that doesn't clog up yet.

I am currently getting ready to prep the beds for fall planting. Pulling and getting rid of plant waste(not composting possible problems) and solarizing hoping to kill the pathogens that I believe came from two truck loads of wood chips I used to cover the grass in that section of yard.

The beds are 16' x 16', 8' x 8', 2' x 4', 4' x 6', round plastic barrel halves, and a 6' x 6'. I used commercial topsoil, miraclegro soil, horse manure, vegetable scraps and straw as my planting base. It was a lot of work, a lot.

would I do it again???

Hell yes.

Now excuse me while I treat my aching back to turning the compost piles.

Northern Michigan here. Expanding the medicinal herb garden. Veggie seeds are started in the grow tent red peppers, varying colored peppers, poblanos, Marconi peppers, yellow pear tomato. Delicata squash, zucchini, cucumbers will go directly into the ground.

5 elderberry trees are coming from our Conservation Club along with 5 more raspberry bushes that will complement what we have now.

I appreciate the age thing, my wife and I are 67 and the number would make no difference but I’m 2 months behind on a hip replacement (covid postponement) and my betrothed just had carotid surgery...but even with that we are slightly ahead of schedule.

Weather is getting better quickly...infrastructure has to be completed in a couple weeks.

Sounds like a great project. I'd be interested in seeing how it progresses.

In the past few years, I've gone from planting about a quarter acre garden, down to several 3' x 4' wood sided beds of tomatoes, peppers, raspberries, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, and asparagus. Two apple trees, two peach trees. Closer to the house, and MUCH easier to take care of. Just had to put gates and tops on to keep out cats and ducks.

Everything looking good so far, with plenty of leafing and blooms, even after we had some night temps back down in the 30's.

My wife who told me earlier that I can do anything i want with the garden has mandated that some changes be made to the layout.

The 4X30 raised bed, running north and south, will form the eastern boundary of the garden. To the south of that raised bed is another raised bed 4x7 running east and south which forms a backwards L. To the south of that is a 4x28 raised row running east and west. the eastern end of the raised row is in line with the eastern sides of the raised beds. The western side of the garden is formed by a 4x40 raised row running north and south. Between that raised row and the raised beds are other raised rows running east and west.

The garden will be smaller then i had planned and will contain a total of 984 square feet of planting area inside of a 48x38 area. The backyard to the east and south-east of the garden will be dedicated to a raspberry bed and fruit trees.

While I ordered 12 cubic yards of topsoil, I got 10 and the cost was $260. I added topsoil to the 4x30 raised bed. I am in the process of tilling and removing rock from the raised rows and once I'm satisfied I've done enough of that, I'll add the rest of the topsoil to them.

In the 4X30 raised bed, I have so far planted Dwarf sugar snap peas, beets, carrots and White Icicle radishes. I'm heading to town in a couple of days and I hope to pick up a package of daikon radishes which I'll plant in the raised bed when I get back. To aid in planting the radishes, beets and dwarf sugar snap peas, I made a planting guide out of cardboard measuring 1'X2'. One one side, I marked out and put holes to plant 9 seeds per square foot. I flipped it over and marked out and made holes to plant 16 seeds per square foot. The former i used to plant the dwarf sugar snap peas and beets the the latter I used to plan the radishes. This made spacing and planting easy. I didn't use it for the carrots as those seeds are too small to handle individually.

My plan is sequence plant White Icicle radishes every week until it gets too hot and then plant again in the fall when it begins to cool, I hope to be able to plant a fall crop of beets and carrots.

I had bought a packet of vining sugar snap peas and as I wanted to plant them early, I put up 4 tee pees in a 3' wide row that is east and parallel of the 4x30 raised bed and which I had worked up last year. I won't be using that row next year as it won't be part of the garden.

I'll have enough of the raised rows ready in time to plant the pole beans, the pepper plants I have started in the house and the tomato plants I'll be getting from my father-in-law.

A small slope and classic New England Uplands soil filled with stones left me with this as the best choice. The garden was sited to get the most sunlight, which is now roughly 8.5 hours.

Looks like you did a great job of adapting to conditions you faced!