Have you abandoned the idea of using your front bed with a fence? You can grow pretty much anything in a container if you work at it but in-ground gardening is much easier with regard to soil, watering and feeding. And from what others have said here planting your vegetables in pots on the deck will not put off the deer. You'd still need to protect them somehow.

maybe i'm just lucky, we have an enormous deer population in our area, i spray liquid fence on roses and day lilies at least every two weeks and plant a lot of herbs, which the deer don't like

my tomatoes, the deer have never bothered...except one time during rut (fall) they damaged one with their horns...i was under the impression they just didn't care for tomatoes...

I'm still going back and forth but my assumption was, considering financial reasons and lack of confidence in a fence I might put up, that the pots will be easier. But I'm still weighing my options. I might still do it, just haven't been able to find an easy to put up fence that is kinda cheap and strong enough to do the job. I'm very not-handy and money is tight right now.