ditto to the 2 raised beds, but not wider than 4'. The easiest beds to work for me by hand are 3'. It's handy to reach across & use fingers. Think about how you'll be balancing yourself to work the garden... Leaning over, standing up using a tool, on knees using hands? Fill the path with mulch material. (can be whatever you gather up & something different on top for looks -- cardboard, burlap, are good top layers if that's all you have) When you fill the path up, so it's no longer a ditch -- you can plant more closely to the edges of your garden & the mulch materials holds moisture. Plan how you'll water the plot before you plant. By hand with a bucket is manageable for your size plot, but plan on spending 1/2 hour doing it 2x a week or more depending on your summer climate/weather. A great watering tip for larger plants is to drill 2-3 small holes in the bottom of 2 liter soda bottles & bury them leaving the neck exposed so you have room to mulch, too. Then when you water also fill the bottle to slowly drip more water in your absence. It barely shows up once you're done with planting around it and once the plants grow will nearly be invisible. Plan ahead how you'll reach it. I like them at least 12" away from the stem of cucumber, tomato or squash. The roots will get what they need that way & I won't be disturbing them with bumping the bottle. Maybe even have that be your child's job to fill the jugs. My kids loved doing that when young. Another idea is to divide up the duties between the adults & child in your family. If you select some plants or an area to be yours to tend it encourages more participation because they own the area. Worked rather well when my children were young. Now hubby is helping more in the garden and selects some things to be his to tend. Makes it more fun for me, too! Someone is always -- in charge-- of the garden, so dividing up ahead of time can avoid some disappointment and arguments about how to -- work it--. Ask others at the community garden what they do -- should give you the local tips. Follow square foot gardening spacing & it will be easier for all of you to plant the garden together. OR just make short rows across your divided plot. Install the supports for your climbers (peas & beans) before you plant. Much easier that way. The simple supports work without breaking the bank. Scrap wood or tree prunings + brown twine can make beautiful supports once covered with beans no one will know you didn't buy the expensive obelisks. We don't bother to paint them because we don't want paint residues though our wood won't last as long. Even a wooden ladder can be put to use as a support. I use them and always get comments from other gardeners. The non-gardeners don't really like my repurposed materials and think of the rows instead of how I garden, so if you go that route be prepared for some comments from the other community gardeners. You don't list your zone. In my area we can grow a 2nd crop of cool season vegetables for fall - early spring harvesting. Very productive & less insect damage in the fall, plus the rain waters the garden for me. I wish your family the best in the gardening adventure. Remember that you will try some things this year, but you have next year, too. It takes years to develop your style & figure it all out to grow a lot of food for your family. When my kids were young we learned together. Then became teens & the garden was no longer an interest. Now my married daughter is growing a good amount of vegetables and fruits for their family. I would not have guessed she'd return to gardening when a teen. We had a lot of fun together as a family or just the kids and I playing games while we worked out there. Be creative with your child and they will work hard with you. I miss my little helpers now. Have fun together in the garden~ Corrine

Thank you all To answer your questions corrine1: I am taking the picture from the back porch of the smaller house. (two houses on the property) the land slopes down towards the other house but has a steeper grade towards the back row of boxwoods. I am working on the gates and will have climbers on the wood poles. I hesitate to put climbers on the black poles as they take the weight of the deer impacts and are under considerable side to side stress from the weight of the fence. (climbers have to be in the inside of the garden to keep the possums and racoons from climbing in) My great aunt made a fantasy tree out of two dogwoods back in 1954. (She twisted the trunks together when they were little whips) I am going to try to do the same thing with a woody plant that grows faster. My long suffering hubby stacked two big rocks (Rock stacking was a favorite pass time of his when he was a kid) down at the low point to make a chair. The top rock is a smooth river rock from the old bridge that got renovated. I will take a picture and post later. It is quite comfortable and has a certain beauty to it. The one advantage to having a down hill garden is the water is at the top of the hill so I am able to run a foot hose down to the garden. I have sisters and cousins who grew up here on this farm so I have to remember that this place has memories for them too. The garden footprint is the original vegatable garden that was started by my great aunt and uncle who also lived on the property with my great grandparents and grandmother. I keep finding "garden ghosts" (Peonies, daffodils, etc) that were planted back in the 40s and 50s. The boxwoods date back to the 20s. Everyone wants some to plant at their homes so part of the potager garden will be a nursery bed that I can propagate the plants in for other relatives.

Glad you like it! I did all the work myself - except for making the raised beds, my dad did that for me. I have a little of everything - onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, potatos, lettuce, carrots, swiss chard, beets, radishes, summer squash, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, peas, beans... This is my backyard - I was sick of mowing and you can't eat grass! I have some flowers mixed in, but mostly the flower section and the veggie section are separated. I had everything mixed last year (following the square foot garden method), but I found it was very hard to keep say onions next to flowers. At a certain point the onions need to dry and you can't water them, but the flowers need water, so it was frustrating. This year I separated everything and organized. It can get over grown REALLY fast. I drew out a map for the placement of the beds and then I stuck to it. It helped a lot! Good luck with your garden!

I'm in eastern Washington, five miles from Idaho. We can't usually do much until April, but without any snow at the moment, I've been able to at least go out and walk around, in the garden. Maybe that's why I like all these grass paths...so I can 'be' in the garden, even when it's too cold to actually do anything! :) I'm planning to move a few things around in the spring...and all the beds in the kitchen garden/potager need to be edged. Since it's still a work in progress, I thought I'd edge the beds, after I finish moving the plants around. I did order some roses for the front bed (my Christmas present from my husband) so that's been fun, too. Mainly, I think we just recover from the summer and look forward to the 'burst of energy' in the spring, before it gets too hot in the summer, to do much work! LOL