You have to leave some space between plants anyway, so what I generally do is place some inexpensive pavers here and there to walk on--they also make an impermeable "mulch" around veggies that don't cast much shade. Right now it's probably still cool enough for you to be planting peas, radishes, lettuce, spinach, and cabbages/brussels sprouts/broccoli/cauliflower, none of which enjoy hot weather. The peas and radishes will be gone first, and eventually the spinach and lettuce will also give up to the summer heat, so do your spacing with that in mind. Swiss chard and beets can also be planted now, but will last longer...chard will take some frost so is a good veggie to plant if you like it. Onion starts and green onions (from little bulbs) can also be planted early. For your space allotment, you would be better with peas (and later, green beans, if not tomatoes) as climbers on tripods or netting on the side of your bed away from the sun so they don't shade other things. You could plant your tomatoes (or green beans) where the peas were, as they should not be planted until comfortably after your last frost date, but a few weeks later will still get you tomatoes. You could plant zucchini where the lettuce and radishes were. Etc. If you plant peppers, which generally have a similar growth habit to tomatoes, but a bit smaller, plant then about the same time as tomatoes--when it is consistently warm with no possibility of a frost. Plan to plant any vining crops like cucumbers, winter squash, zucchini, etc. on the edge of your bed which faces the sun the longest. The sun will draw them away from the bed so that they won't compete as much with whatever else you have planted. They are the most susceptible to cold, and are usually planted some time after tomatoes and peppers. Bush zucchini can also get quite large and cast a lot of shade. Someone else will have to advise you about carrots, celery, potatoes...I am not experienced with those. If you like artichokes, though, you should try them. You will have faster results if you purchase pregrown cabage family, tomatoes, and artichokes, but it's a waste to spend money for starts of lettuce, spinach, and most other vegetables...most of the vine ones do fine direct seeded asa the weather is consistently warm, which is when tomatoes also do best...but it does stretch the growing season to use plants for those with the longest times to maturity. Tomatoes will survive before the weather is consistently warm as long as there are no frosts, but not do as well as if you had waited. Ones planted at the optimal time will usually get just as large as those planted earlier, and be more productive. If you plant full sized tomato plants, tomato cages are advisable, and they would also be helpful to pepper plants and Brussels sprouts. Obviously, you will not be able to plant all of these, but will have to choose which you like the best and go from there. Tomatoes are usually a priority for most, and three or four well grown plants properly spaced can yield a good quantity of tomatoes. If you like hot peppers, the Thai ones make a small plant and produce quite a few little red peppers toward the end of the summer. Brussels sprouts take up quite a bit of room, but can be picked over a period of time, unlike cabbage. Some varieties of broccoli are especially good at producing side shoots when the main head has been cut off. You can get quite a few green onions with one short row, if you like them. Peas and green beans, if kept picked when ready, will keep producing (peas only until it gets hot). Ditto with zucchini and cucumbers. The winter squashes are usually not ready until late summer, but if you pick some green for summer use it will sometimes stimlate more to be developed. The vegetables that don't do well in heat either die (peas) or start producing seed (lettuce, spinach, broccoli, etc.) In some countries, radish seed pods are pickled, I have noticed. Also, I think radish leaves make a tasty vegetable, either steamed or stir fried. So do beet greens.

DH put in 3 raised beds for me 3 years ago. This is our third year and only minimal Bermuda grass coming through. Here is what he did. 1. Scalp the ground with the weed wacker down to dirt. 2. Lay down two layers of 10 year black weed blocker paper (water permeable). The bottom layer north to south and top layer east to west -and- he extended the paper about 3 inches outside the wood box. 3. Fill the beds (all 4x4) with potting mix and peat moss and all the old growing medium from our EarthBoxes. 4. During the summer and fall he regularly weed-wacks all around the raised beds to keep down any weeds in the area. The Bermuda grass has only rarely grown up thru the 10 inches of 'dirt' and I have no mulch around my okra, beans and squash. I plant collard greens in these same beds in fall and they stay until spring - still very, very few weeds. I credit the scalping DH does with weed-wacker for keeping the weeds from growing wild around the beds. I credit the weed-block paper for keeping the weeds almost completely out of the beds. DL

Some of the old stuff I took in the civil engineering soil mechanics courses are coming back now after thirty years. The suggestion given on digging the ditch deeper, assuming this is a "drainage ditch", and not a dugout, within your property would help during "normal drier times" in lowering the phreatic surface of the ground water within the soil (fancy old fashioned technical word that just means ground water level when not telescoping out into the open as the surface of a lake) . But during floods doubt it would be of much help as the water will still rise to and above the surface if your in the lowest spot and the ditch is not actually flowing, or is too small for the quantity of surface runoff and ground water discharge. You should also watch out for digging the ditch too deep with steep walls because it's sides can subside (fall in) from pore pressure dissipation if your soil is sandy or loamy. In the end though, the ditch needs to flow and be sized for the flow to get rid of it. I had minor "water problems" in this property compared to yours and it was caused by me making the gardens by building 12 to 18 inch high rose beds and cutting the surface runoff escape to the swale.. It took two 9 inch rectangular catchment basins (sewer traps) and about 100 feet of drainage tiles and ditching to prevent the surface water and eaves trough water from ponding against my garden beds at the two lowest spots. I cut off the escape to concrete swale (ditch) that runs across the back of my property. The biggest pain I had was not enough gradient (vertical distance from house to swale) to accommodate the 6 inch diameter weeping tile ... so for the last 20 feet through the garden I used perforated pipe to let it go into the soil and cut two holes though my retaining wall for the discharges into the swale. It would be interesting to see photos of the rest of the situation - I find it very interesting but can sympathize with how it sucks right now especially having dug those holes for a lot of roses. Hope you success in solving it. Good luck.

I never rely on just one layer of cardboard, at the least tis cardbaord plus spread newspaper sections, and often I'll use two overlapping layers of coardbaord. However, nothing stops bermuda except killing all of it in the area (that is, within 6 feet of the bed). I'm going to resort to using herbicides in a week or so during my vacation to knock back some patches creeping in on garden beds before I'm overrun and hope I can get the well-behaved native grasses to re-establish instead.