Renewal in a New Garden

I have great hopes of starting a garden this year.  My husband and I are reconstructing our front lawn, which was a victim of the eternal drought that California has been in, will now be our garden. We are starting off with 2, 6' x 3' raised beds and eventually hope to get to 8 or 9 in the space.

I was never a good gardener, I have tried to start but I became distracted by my kids, my job and the fact that you have to establish a routine for water, thinning, harvesting, mulching ect.  It's a lot of work and I've decided that in order for it to be successful, I'll have to plan it like a job.  I'll be scheduling seeding and transplanting, times to fertilize, or not, nitrate, mulch, thin out, cover and FINALLY harvest!

I was disappointed when I looked at the Better Homes and Gardens gardening site and their application found hardly any vegetables would grow in my zip code, but when I visited the Farmers Almanac, I was pleasantly surprised by how many actually do.  I'll even put in a few bushes for berries and maybe some barrel planted fruit trees that we could shelter in our garage in the winter.

Rough plans

If you are one to look at plans, here are the rough plans:

I'm pretty sure 9 raised beds of 6' x 3' will be a lot to take care of.   In the center we would like to have some type of seating area with an arbor or open gazebo area, we just need to not be casting shadows on things that will need sun.

Wondering what we'll plant?  For starters, we'll do strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, mini bell peppers and radishes.

Happy Carb Counting!

First raised beds