Small plot gardening

[castle key]

I enjoy having a vegetable garden each summer and I am beginning to plan this year’s.

I have about two hundred square feet of raised beds that I want to use.

Typically I have tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, various herbs and spices, carrots, radishes, you know, the usual stuff. I also have a few pots with stuff in them; generally afterthoughts.

I have grown beans that climb upwards on a frame with strings. I have tried strawberries a few years, but they never really get going. I think the strawberries are really not worth the commitment with regards to the amount of space coupled with a lousy yield. Maybe it would be best to just buy the strawberries and focus on the other things.

For two hundred square feet, what sort of suggestions do you all have?

I want a good “bang for the buck” for the amount of space I will use. How many of each plant would you suggest? If you really know plants, what specific varieties do you like? I enjoy messing around in the garden, but I get bored quickly, so I want things that will not suffer too much with some indifference!

I don’t like okra and odd flavored “greens.” I want some onions that will grow well. The clime is mid Atlantic, just outside of Washington, DC and I have pretty good sun for a large part of the day.

[RevDisk]

Any suggestions for 'enclosed' raised bed gardening? I live partially in the woods, so I don't want to open an "all you can eat" buffet for the local critters.

[AJ Dual]

You can make something out of 1/2" PVC and plastic sheet that's decent enough. At least decent enough to be worth the effort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB0Yx2lYysE

I built my mom raised beds for veggies and herbs in her back yard using 4x4" pressure treated posts on those concrete pier blocks, 2x16"s for the box sides,  2x4 "joists" on hangers inside leaving about a 12" plantable depth, holding up a pressure treated plywood deck with drain holes at random every 6", landscape fabric, then filled it with dirt.

It was more of a "don't have to bend over" raised bed, than anything else though.

We just fenced it off from deer with cheap plastic picket fence panels.

[bedlamite]

Oh, plot. nevermind.

[Kingcreek]

Square foot gardening method is great for small plots and raised beds.
Pole beans do really well on a trellis that also provides afternoon shade for lettuce or spinach. I use wire livestock cattle panel cut in half and wired to steel fence posts.
Vines like cucumber take up a lot of space unless it's controlled. I plant a bush type cucumber inside a cylinder made from about 6' of fence wire 4' tall and it climbs and clings. I get a lot of cukes from a 3x3' garden space.
I have about 2000sqft of veggie garden and raised beds in addition to the greenhouse. I have a second greenhouse 34x48' to put up but I probably won't get it done this year. I grow a lot of good vegetables.

[RoadKingLarry]

Vines like cucumber take up a lot of space unless it's controlled.

For vining stuff you can train them on a trellis. I do pickling cukes that way and get good results. I've also done smaller melons that way, the icebox size watermelons do pretty good that way so do smaller cantelopes.

[never_retreat]

Almost all of my 13 4x8 beds have 2 posts and wire strung between them. Then I just mover things around year to year. Tomatoes, cukes, beans, etc. Everything else gets planted around the tall stuff.