Check out the Square foot gardening forum and website for square foot gardening. This will give you some ideas that you may want to consider for a smaller area.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/sqfoot/

You're smart to do a little prep work in the fall.

If you like to Rototill, that's fine, but you don't have to. Just spread cardboard or a thick layer of newspaper on the area, wet it and pile your amendments on top. As you rake leaves in the fall add them on top of that. Toss on a little dirt as you go to weight them down so that they don't blow around. Give them a good stomping to break them up, too. If your soil is dry enough, you can work whatever is left in the spring into the soil with a Rototiller, or just plant through it. The soil and compost forum can offer lots more advice. I finally realized that I like making soil even more than I like gardening.

Since your soil is sandy, you may need to water frequently, so be sure you have some non-frustrating water source. If you have to drag a hose from a distant house, you aren't going to have much fun. Find something to use as mulch for water retention. A bale of straw from a feed store is pretty inexpensive and looks nice to my eye, anyway. Leaves, grass clippings, etc, can be used as mulch too.

You can plant much more thickly than seed packets will tell you. Like mike says, I would use the spacing advice in the square foot garden forum, but skip the "Mel's mix" part. OTOH, with your short growing season, you might want to think about raised beds, but just fill them with native soil, compost and any garden waste (my favorite is hedge trimmings!) you have. I often add a bag or two of cheap, clay kitty litter for water retention. The perlite-peat-compost Mel's Mix isn't really an optimal planting mix anyway as well as being pretty spendy. Search for the contributor "tapla" in the container forum, if you are interested in trying some highly productive soilless mixes in a raised bed.

I agree with your desire to plant interesting vegetables. I see no reason to grow anything that I can buy, since I don't have much room either at my current location. I particularly like to grow things that benefit from being fresh picked ... with a bit of hand pollinating you can grow small blocks of corn.

My favorite pest control tactics are rodent bait, row covers, and bird netting.

jxbrown which mels mix should i skip the 1981 version or the more modern version. In most cases a good mix of a varied compost mix is all a square foot garden needs.

I don't know the difference sassy. I know that some people get pretty irate over criticism of the mix and I don't want to start a flame war. I mistakenly said perlite above, but the mix that I've heard called "Mel's Mix" is equal parts vermiculite, peat, and compost. Vermiculite breaks down very quickly, peat is hard to wet, and the whole mess can easily become waterlogged and compacted before the season is over. I highly recommend Al's (search for the string "tapla") explanations over in the container forum. The bottom line is that roots grow best in the interface between air and water, so you want a fairly porous soil with some water retention ability. I'm eager to start experimenting with Turface and pine bark for next year. I kind of hit on incorporating a lot of slow to decay material in raised beds by accident, but since reading what Al writes, I have a better understanding of why it works.

I currently use a mix of well composted material and completely uncomposted, chopped material with a bit of unused clay cat litter. My favorite fresh material is hedge trimmings from waxy leaved bushes that will break down fairly slowly, but that have been chopped up by the trimming process to make them more manageable.

Here are my slightly shaded tomatoes at 11 or 12 weeks before fruit started to ripen. They are currently about a foot taller than the 8' tall pergola (that's an adult standard poodle at the base, for size comparison):

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I have a Square Foot Garden and I used "Mel's Mix" (2005 book, I think; definitely the more recent one). My only difficulties this year have stemmed from 1) incorrect spacing and 2) believing the 6-inch depth. I'll correct to 12 inches for my fall planting.

But my comment here is to alert you to the possible difficulty of rototilling w/regard to tree roots. If your proposed garden plot is bordered on two sides by trees, those trees' roots are going to be SOMEWHERE--probably right beneath your intended garden.

Whoever hits those roots while maneuvering the tiller could be seriously injured by losing balance, falling, being thrown, etc. Or "just" a wrist/elbow sprain.

It might be worthwhile to consult a local expert (arborist, independent gardener) regarding the rooting, shedding, and cultural needs of these trees.

"Cultural": maybe the trees like more/less water than the veggies you propose to grow. Will such water differences lead to sick trees? Etc.

Good luck, and I hope everything works out happily for you, the garden, and the trees!

in el cerrito