If you really have that may animals that will eat your vegetables, fence the area in from all sides.

While many people "love to till". There is no need to till every year if you make sure to use sustainable practices that don't sterilize your soil and don't compact your soil. For instance using plenty of compost instead of chemical fertilizers and not walking on designated growing areas.

An irrigation system is always helpful with less maintenance.

How steep is the slope ? If water runs off to the drain you mentioned at the bottom of the slope you will loose topsoil / nutrients at the top. - imo - Mulching 2 " or less would help but will still depend on the degree of slope

namfon - I don't think the slope will cause that much soil shifting - I can't quantify it well, but if you placed a folding chair on it, it would not tip over.

So, that's it? No one has any suggestions how I can make a vegetable garden other then railroad ties filled with dirt?

First off, don't use railroad ties, second, don't fill with "dirt". For the ultimate vegetable garden, build raised beds using safe materials and a good growing medium whether ready made or one your mix yourself. You can use bricks, cinder blocks, plastic decking, etc for the sides.

Can you provide a photo of the area?

{{gwi:33392}}
{{gwi:33394}}
{{gwi:33395}}
{{gwi:33396}}{{gwi:33397}}
{{gwi:33398}}{{gwi:33399}}{{gwi:33400}}
{{gwi:33401}}{{gwi:33402}}{{gwi:33403}}

At 4' x 10' you're not talking about much veggie space. Specifically, what veggies do you intend to grow? That will determine the best way to design, protect and irrigate the bed.

I'll try and get a photo if it ever stop rainign here :(
Your photos are beautiful!
I'll grow whatever will fit :)
Ideally: Beans, Peas, Cherry Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, Califlower and maybe some herbs.
This is for some fun with the kids and for our own consumption. I don't need 10 plants of anything - it would just go to watse.

4' x 10' is plenty of space if intensive gardening practices are utilized. You can get 100% of the yield in 20% of the space.

;)

I'd build a raised bed, using some sort of inert material to hold the soil. There are all sorts of options here. Concrete blocks, fake wood decking material, etc. All can be made to look acceptable with very little work.

A good method of irrigation would be soaker hose, buried a few inches in the soil. You don't need, or want to till the soil every year, and as long as you lay out the soaker in a logical fashion, you won't damage it when planting.

Protection from all those critters you list is the biggest problem. If not for the peas, beans and tomatoes, you could enclose the entire bed in a hoop-like cage. Make arches from black poly tube, and tie on chicken wire with cable ties. Use another form of tie along the sides to make it easier to access the bed. The problem is the height you'll need for the peas, beans and tomatoes. Bush beans and some of the smaller varieties of snow peas would fit under the cage, but tomatoes won't. I've seen tomatoes grown in a cage-within-a-cage arrangement in deer country. It surprised me that deer would bother tomatoes, but apparently if they're hungry enough, they will.

If money is no object, you could buy one of those chainlink dog enclosure cages, and erect it to protect the entire garden space.

{{gwi:33405}}

A 6' high x 6' wide x 12' long model, with no top, runs $560, plus freight. You'd want a top as well, to deter deer.

Another consideration is the earth below the garden area. If you have burrowing critters, you'll want to bury some heavy duty hardware fabric, 12-18" below the surface.

Don't get too jealous of those pictures mwieder, they aren't from Violet's garden, they are from a web site that discusses square foot gardening plans.

Pictures are a great help in designing, because it lets you plan for plant height, spacing, and entry into your garden area. Fences are useful as supports for your vining veggies as well as to keep out the critters. I'm lucky here that deer are not an issue. Rabbits are a problem. I can't grow sugar snap peas without a fence. Luckily, the fence is needed for support as well. Don't be fooled by pea varieties that state they don't need staking. They lie. Peas need support. Growing vertically as well as using the Square Foot Garden intensive planting can give you quite a lot of veggies in your 4' x 10' area. The only veggies I wouldn't recommend for that small of a TOTAL garden space are the big vining types (Hubbard squash, pumpkins, watermelons, etc) or the veggies that need a significant planting for pollination (corn). Beware, If you decide to plant a sunflower in your garden it will shade a large space.

I'd recommend you visit the Square Foot garden site, and check out their range of books at your local library. I find the information endlessly useful. I don't always plant exactly to their scale, but I do refer to the spacing they recommend. I feel that some plants need more room here in the South than the Square Foot books recommend. I definitely wouldn't go any closer than the spacing recommended in these books!

Here is a link that might be useful: square foot garden official site

i had a 6' fence around my garden for about 13 years before the deer started getting in. a couple of years before that something started burrowing under the fence to get in. so i finally bit the bullet and rebuilt the fence higher on the uphill side (where the 6' fence was easier to jump over -- from higher ground) and dug one foot out and one foot down around the outside of the fence. i put 3" tall chicken wire in the ditch, folded at a right angle facing out (away from the garden.) then i attached the remaining 2' to the main fence. i filled in the area with dirt to cover. i haven't had any critters in the garden since. the idea is that an animal trying to burrow under will get as far as the fence that's folded outward won't be able to get through.

it might look silly around a 4' by 10' garden, but with al those critters it'll be necessary i think. btw, the fence might not have to be that high, as deer are less likely to jump into a small area that's fenced off than a large one.

granite and egganddart, thanks for the input! Time to do more reading...

OK, here are photos of the site (please ignore the kiddie pool :) ). The area that we will be re-doing is whatever is covered in stones, but the whole flat area can be viewed as a canvas for the project. I'm open to any and all suggestions. The second photo is the with the house directly behind me (although I'm on a chair to get a better view), and as much as possible I don't want to block the view of the pond from the house, so setting up a 8' greenhouse over the area is out of the question.
Each photo is taken to the right of the previous one, the first 4 from the house side, and the last 2 looking back towards the house.

{{gwi:13865}}
{{gwi:13867}}
{{gwi:13869}}
{{gwi:13871}}
{{gwi:13872}}
{{gwi:13873}}

Hm. Okay. No tall plants, except a few at the very far end. Orientation is important - which way is north? You don't want the tall plants shading things, so if the house is north of the pond, then you wouldn't want to put tall stuff even at the far end. Because in summer the sun will be casting shadows northward, over the rest of the garden. If the house is in the south though, then tall plants at the north end would be fine.

You'll also be wanting to preserve paths through there. You could go the rectilinear approach and make simple rectangles. Or you could do curving sections that echo the pond. You could heap up iregularly shaped raised beds about about 2x4' and put a winding path between them using stone like that edging the pond.

gamebird - thanks for the help. The pond is due south of the house. When you talk about putting tall plants at the 'far end' - which side of the space are you talking about? As you can see in the pictrues, the west side of the space is lined with small trees (about 8'-10' tall) and the east side has the bridge, so adding some tall plants there probably wouldn't add any additional shade to the garden. Could you describe more what you mean about heaping up irregularly shaped beds?
thanks!

I've taken a stab at making a diagram of the site. Based on what you guys have said, I added some shapes to the site for vegetables and perennials. The vegetables are in 3'x3' cubes. Let me know what you would do differently - I won't be insulted :)
Make sure you view the image fullsize.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:33389}}

How did it go for you mwieder?

So for it's going great violet! I ended up using boxes on my deck and doing some landscaping in that rea by the pond. I hope to post some photos later this week.