Since time is short, I would plant lettuce and radishes. I love them both and they would be ready to eat quickly! If you have a lot of sun, next year you could try small peppers and bush beans. Actually, I would move some of the herbs to the railing containers and use the larger pots for vegetables. Many are available now in smaller sizes suitable for container gardening.

I assume most people don't have an extra $10k lying around to add the deck. That includes JC. (Excluding for a moment cpartist's valid point that on a higher end home, you're more likely to.) So you're suggesting she borrow the money that she's not going to make back. If it's a $900k house without a deck, spending $10k to add the deck isn't going to make it a $910k house. It might make it a $905k house. So save the $10k, and walk away with your $900k instead if spending $10k to walk away with $895k. Adding it onto the mortgage means paying for it over a longer period, which means more interest. Which makes that deck cost even more. But if someone REALLY wanted to do that, they could add in the 10k to the mortgage for improvements. I'm also assuming there's another way into the back yard. If there isn't, then I'd want that deck somewhere else, so you don't have to walk through the master bedroom to get to the back yard.

We used livestock fence panels for our deck. We lived in a rural area out West so no difficulty finding ranching/livestock supplies. It was tricky finding panels that had the same size holes across the whole panel. The hog panels that Virgil mentioned have very small openings at the bottom and graduate to pretty darn big holes at the top. DIY by DH and friend. He bought online aluminum U-channel to make a frame for each panel and attach to the post. Then used aluminum-colored spray paint to help protect the galvanized panels and match the aluminum trim and silver-painted steel posts. The holes in the panel are right around 4", and our dogs were big enough not to fit through those holes. It was hard, tedious work as it was a second-story deck, but it sure looked wonderful when done. We used Timbertech composite for decking and for the railing. This is showing off the underrail LED lighting against the snow. Pretty cool! Edited to add: we also considered glass and cable to preserve the view but the costs were prohibitive. These panels virtually disappear during the day.

Brenda, your comment to @Beverly made me think of my front porch which also faces West so I know what you mean about the heat! My suggestion is to install an external roll up solar shade. We got ours at Lowe’s for @ $100 a few years ago & it’s added so much value & flexibility to our use of front porch for such a small amount of $$ as house item purchases go. It is mounted behind the eve trim board & happened to be available in the same color so it is invisible when rolled up. Shade comes in multiple colors so one is sure to be good match to most houses. Our porch is ground level - poured with sidewalk so we don’t have a railing to attach it to. We drove spikes into ground & attached bungee cords to stakes - the hook at other end of cord attached to shade when rolled down - shade is @10’ long I think. You could roll part way down & attach to railing with hooks that come with shade or all the way & attached to deck. If breeze or wind not an issue then it can free hang. Again, this shade really expanded our use of our front porch! You can see through the shade a bit & it’s surprising how much cooler the porch is.