It looks like you don't have enough corn for good pollination. My understanding is that you need at least 4' x 4' of corn for decent pollination. Do you have a plan on how you will get to the plantings in the back for care & harvesting? I think you might want to consider some stepping stones at least. Consider also that your plants will bush out - when we grew cukes & beans on a trellis in a bed 2 feet from the fence they bushed out so much there wasn't much room to get behind them. Also, I have never grown okra, but I've heard the plant can be irritating to the skin. I think it gets pretty big, too. You might think about putting it together & somewhere you won't have to come into contact with it until you want to. Why are you mixing things up? Are you trying to avoid cross pollinating varieties, or going for aesthetics? Or is it for another reason? I would consider putting same plants together because they will have the same needs & you can more easily deal with them as a group. Beans are great & can be very productive. You could substitute them for the corn along the back. Perhaps you could do a block of a short variety of corn (so it doesn't shade other things too much) if you move things around a bit. I am not familiar with your growing area, so I'm not sure what else to add. I see you have cukes growing on the fence, but you have a line of them down into the bed. Will those get a trellis, or are you putting bush varieties in front? Definitely (IMO) put as much organic matter into your soil as you can. We have terrible soil here (sand), but my small gardens are looking lush. We found a local coffee shop that gives us bags of their compostable material regularly. We add that straight to the garden beds (coffee grounds, veggie scraps, egg shells) with some manure (we use quail because it is inexpensive & convenient). Also, we added in some peat moss & vermiculite the first couple of times we were turning over the beds. Hopefully someone with more expertise will give you some good tips. Best of luck!

The same material as the counter isn't an option since the counters are installed and we don't have enough left over. The veining wouldn't work out too well either that way. Does anyone know what mamadadapaige ended up doing to cover her plywood shiplap?

I agree with adding a "people" gate so that those who park in the driveway have access to the yard. If you put the gate on the back side of the fence (the piece that is parallel to the road and joins the corner of the porch) you can use it also to access garbage/recycling. But do you really even need to keep the fence? I know these are common in older sections of older northern cities where the houses are close to the road. But do you, personally, need the fence? I would think it would be important if you had your childen or your pets out there. Or maybe if your yard would be a shortcut if not fenced off. But it might be much more inviting if you just did away with it entirely.

I know of no paint coating that would totally hide such roughness. It is far better to simply patch the roughness with drywall compound, then prime and paint. If the drywall paper has been exposed down to the brown underlying paper, prime those areas first with a quick dry oil based primer such as the Original Kilz or Cover Stain. Use a sanding block for all sanding.