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.

Someone, please help! I am an amateur at vegetable gardening and would really, really appreciate some guidance ASAP. Thanks so much.

My soil is brick hard, heavy red clay with a thick Bermuda grass lawn. so I wanted to plant in raised beds rather than fighting this soil and invasive grass. I covered the existing sod with 4 layers of cardboard boxes to smother the grass, and put everything on top of that. In the thread "Reheat old pile in new composter??", I posted a comment "Cold vs Hot Compost" where I explained how I simply piled 6 feet of leaves and grass clippings inside my raised beds last fall and left them all winter. By spring I had a foot of rich leaf mold in the 3 raised beds where I planted herbs, tomatoes, and peppers. Last week I was removing a few of the determinate tomato vines that were past their prime and replacing them with some suckers I had removed earlier and rooted in pots. The roots of the old plants I was removing were anchored very well into the clay soil beneath the bed. The earthworms, soil microbes, and plant roots together have already begun to improve the tilth of the hard clay beneath the bed. There was no sign of the grass sod or cardboard boxes; the worms had eaten them all up. Last fall I had originally planned to double dig the area beneath the raised beds, until I found that I could not dig a hole more than a few inches deep. After only 9 months since I piled up the leaves, using only a hand trowel, I was now able to easily dig 6 inches into the original soil beneath the beds. It would have taken a jackhammer to have dug 6 inch last fall. This fall I'm planning to mix in more leaves to compensate for organic matter that has decayed this summer. As soon as my neighbors rake their leaves and put them by the road, I'm planning to drag them home with me to start a 4th bed for strawberries next spring. While double digging beds used to be considered the "gold standard" by which to get great results, new research is increasingly going the other way. I was reading a report on the Rodale Institute's website recently about mycorrhizal fungi and its benefits to crops. To maximize mycorrhizal colonization, their research is showing that you should plant cover crops which you mow down rather than turn under. By disturbing the soil as little as possible and keeping cover crops growing whenever fields are not in production, the soil supports development of more beneficial microbes that maintain the tilth of the soil better than plowing does. I've got a long discussion going about mycorrhizal fungi in the container forum. While soils often contain enough of the fungi so that inoculants are not needed, there has been some debate of whether plants in containers could benefit from inoculation with mycorrhizal fungi. Some said that the high temps in containers would destroy the fungi, but new research suggests the fungi survive the high temps of soil in containers during summer and are a great help to plants in containers during hot weather. Once you establish a healthy soil climate in the raised beds, recent research suggests that the microbes and plants will take over and do everything that is needed to maintain improve the soil beneath the bed as well.

I should add that I have been gardening for a long time, about 27 years, most of that time as a square foot gardener( I think I bought the first book when it came out!) at two houses. I have always had raised beds, but, never the exact ones I wanted or in the right configuration. Right now I have ten 2 x 7 s but they are starting to fall apart and need to be be redone. I also installed drip irrigation 2 years ago and that has been the single most amazing thing I have ever done!!! No weeds grew - it was unbelievable. The water is delivered in such a focused manner that the top soil stays dry and discourages weeds...so I didn't mulch - and had no slugs. Again, amazing! So, I have a BIG birthday coming up....and all I want is the perfect raised bed garden of my dreams: wood that never rots, automatic watering, and lots and lots of room to satisfy my craving for plants. Yeah. Now all I need is good trellising(which I have never been able to master) Amymhm- you are right about time for harvesting. I sometimes feel a little guilty about that. Picking beans takes a looooong time. And I do work full time. But, hey, it's a dream. Will keep you posted.