I totally understand your question. I am gardening at 66. I would keep the mowing lawn small. Decide what you like and want from a vegetable garden....do you plan to can or freeze. Make a list of those veggies, figure how much space is required. I would start the garden small if you have never gardened before. You can get great info from your state extension people about how to raise anything for your area. If you can bend and squat without difficulty, I would certainly have some strawberries. Blackberries and other brambles are a bit of trouble, but delicious. Be sure you understand their growing and pruning requirements. As for fruit trees, most require 7 to 10 sprays a season to have good quality fruit. The one fruit that comes to mind requiring no sprays is pears and I don't spray my sour cherry tree. If you want to cultivate this as a semi-hobby thing for retirement. I would plant trees soon, most take 3-5 years to produce. Ornamentals.......I am trying to get more shrubs and grasses and ornamental trees so that I won't have so much to maintain as you do with perennials. Bulbs are great, once you get them in the ground, they just require feeding now and again; likewise clematis. At your age, I sure wouldn't hesitate to plant whatever I wanted. Think of the wasted years between now and whenever (if ever) when you can't garden. My neighbor who is 85 moved to her present home about 15 years ago and planted trees. They are now lovely shade trees. If she thought she was too old at 70, they wouldn't be there now for her to enjoy. As to layout, that is a personal preference thing once you are sure you have the right amount of sun and drainage required for things to thrive. Of course, you need the garden to be close to a water source. My biggest problem here is too much shade for my veggie garden. The trees were here when we moved in 1991. Be sure you don't plant anything that will shade your garden on the south side. Wow, I think I have covered everything. Good luck, don't let indecision bog you down. I wish I had planted my fruit trees the first thing; just did some last fall.

Chili frozen fruit???? Must mean something else in Chinese. Salesman not needed here.

I'm happy with the quality of blackberry, raspberry, boysenberry in my manual defrost freezer for 2 yrs +. If in a self defrosting freezer for 6 or more months they should still be fine. If they appear a little freezer burned from self defrost cycles its a matter of taste, not safety, and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice will often brighten up the flavor for pies, desserts.

If your patio is warm and sunny and traps the warmth then you may have what's called a 'microclimate' which can be different/higher than the general local one. This can be really useful for you as a grower. You can maybe start growing earlier and expect plants to carry on growing for longer - just because you have a sunny, warm, and sheltered site. If you have room on your patio for a long table, not too wide - and not too scruffy(!) - you can put your containers up at a height where you can tend them more easily. One with a metal frame would be good. It would be possible to make a small 'tent' frame to go over the containers and sit on the table top, too. If you then covered this with horticultural fleece/frost cloth - or thick, clear glasshouse type plastic - you'd protect your plants from frost and could grow on for longer. Right now, even without having that protection you could plant up fancy lettuces or a mesclun mix (posh name for lots of different leafy plants picked regularly as a mixture) for salad greens and just cover them at night with either bubble wrap or cardboard to protect from early frost. Another plant that will probably tough it out through winter with a bit of shelter - and can be cut a stalk at a time - is Swiss chard. It comes in plain white stem/green leaf - and varieties with coloured stems which lets it double as decoration. What to do with the soil after a crop has finished? Unless you had a diseased crop, you can reuse the mix. Add some slow release fertiliser which looks like little balls, mix it through - and plant something different. If you grew peas - use the mix next time to grow lettuce. If you grew lettuce - move on to carrots. Just don't feed the carrots too much. There'll likely be enough goodness left over after the lettuces have finished. (This is what the books are talking about with 'crop rotation'. It helps to keep bugs and diseases at low levels.) From time to time - add some fresh mix. Say every time you take out plants you've finished with. When you come to grow tomatoes - they are hungry plants and have big root systems - even the little cherry tomatoes. They drink heaps, too, so acquire bigger containers - four gallons is probably useful. Those dear little plants simply shoot up - and down. If there's only you, or just two people in your household - go for the 'baby' varieties unless you love lots of coleslaw, for example. There are plenty of just-for-one varieties now. You can mulch to keep the soil cooler and hold in moisture by using 'dead' things - like pebbles and big glass beads that are about half to one inch wide. Big enough for you to easily take them off the surface to wash in a bucket and reuse on the next crop. (Keeping things clean is more important with containers than in gardens. There aren't so many friendly microbes in a bag of sterile potting mix.) If your local plant supply places are selling strawberry plants now plant them up in a container of their own. Don't buy the cream just yet because they'll need to grow on for a year (unless your local conditions say otherwise) and you'll actually have to take off any young fruit before it ripens. It's worth it, though. And you can use the tent to protect your crop from strawberry-hungry birds if you cover it with some nylon netting.