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

You stole my heart with all that wonderful subtropical looking foliage ! After getting your safety items in order then the fun can begin with the planning of the landscape and other features. The way the deck is laid out really emphasizes the fenced in box shape of your property. When laying out your new landscape , if it were me, I would start to layer in some graceful curving beds with a layered planting of perennials( foreground) shrubs( midground) and a few trees ( background and canopy ). An overall master plan would help you with phasing and budgeting. A master plan will give you the 'big picture' but it doesn't get down to the nitty gritty of construction detailing. It is sort of a story board that will help you prioritize your project as a whole. In your master plan the shape of the landscape is defined and perhaps even some specific varieties of plants are called out. The deck and any augmentations are drafted up too. All this helps with overall budgeting and staging/ installing the various elements. From May 30, 2012

It's an awful lot of work, and the chances of being able to make a living in a backyard are small. I use 10 acres and make a living, but not a great one. If you are serious about this: * Sell your house. Use the proceeds to buy an acreage about 45 minutes out of town. 45 mintues here is the magic number for prices. We bought a house and 80 acres for about what just a house in the city cost. * Search Youtube for 'backyard nursery' * Get a copy off of Amazon of Dirr's "Manual of Woody Landscape Plants" It's about 50 bucks second hand. * If you are restricted for space and strength, the money will be in producing liners. A liner is a plant grown to be sold to other growers. Typically from 1 inch to 1 foot tall. Find out what's popular by visiting greenhouses and nurseries in your area. At each one find out if they buy pre-grown plants, or if they buy smaller plants and grow them to size. Garden centers tend to be the first, wholesale only nurseries tend to be the latter. Retail nurseries are often a mix. * Pick things that are easy to propagate * Pick a spectrum of things to spread the work load.

The above is excellent advice!! Too often I have clients that focus in on what is rather than what could be. They have the notion that what is currently in place - a garden shed, an aging patio, a big tree, the AC pump - has to remain and must be worked around. It doesn't - anything can be changed/removed and in doing so, it opens up many more opportunities to create something they really want or will find useful and attractive. It's easy to think about making major changes in the flow or floor plan and remodeling of the interior of the house but many have difficulties grasping those same 'remodeling' visions to the exterior of their property. Or that there is value in doing so and worth the investment. Frankly, that's often why they hire a designer...........or post on this forum :-) Often the completely objective views of an outsider, someone with no personal attachment to the situation, can help them see beyond what is to what could be. There may be a cost associated with the removal of these 'vision impediments' and sometimes that cost can be hefty but I encourage them to try to see the value of the cost investment, just as they did when reworking the interior aspects. Often I will ask new clients to describe to me their "lottery landscape" - what they would want if money was no object. And then we get to the nitty-gritty of budgets and practicalities and attempt to come up with a compromise that will incorporate the best/most important features of the lottery landscape with a real landscape plan that will accommodate the budget. And that often involves the removal of fixtures they had assumed had to be permanent. It is also important to remember that outside of HGTV shows, a revised or recreated landscape is an evolving entity. Rather than looking at it as a fait accompli or an all-at-once finished deal, this is something that can be completed over time as energy and budget allows. Just don't allow what's there now overly influence how you move forward. Anything can be changed :-))