There are many reasons to have a raised bed. Ours is gophers!! Sucks to go to all that work and have gophers eat the roots of your plants. We line ours with hardware cloth and, ours is too big. 4' is good! You can grow many veggies in 4' of space. This dude has many raised beds all laid out, and this video is on corn! Good luck!

Yardvaark - thanks for the reply and suggestion. I am already doing a lot of container gardening on the deck but quickly running out of space. Unfortunately, moving is not an option so I will need to make this work!

I wouldn’t either but can you stand the other side and take a from there?

Pic

I planted in the ground for several years before deciding on raised bed preference (and I'm thinking for next year, and the only ones I am doing are more decorative away from my "main" garden). they can be great, but be sure of what you want! even if your soil isn't great, you might want to think about in-ground and amending the soil until you are sure of your needs

Raised beds would “dress up” the area but are not needed.

For my size and planting, 2’ wide, 8-16’ long, raised beds.

Where i live, I think what you want, are called planter beds, not raised beds. Raised beds are boxes on legs. Planter boxes are framed areas, on the ground. I think planter beds 2-3’ wide would make thing look organized.

Re planting vegetables, are you planning for next year? What do you grow? Where is the garden?

I love my raised veggie beds. They aren't on legs but are about 30" high. Very ergonomic! You want to be able to easily reach into the middle, so nothing too wide. I'd probably base the sizes on the size of lumber (or whatever) you're making the walls from. (Like if you are using 8' lengths, then it makes sense to do 4x8 planters.)

Is this your entire back yard? Does it need to look nice? Or do you want it to be purely practical?

Raised beds would not add any space, but only alter existing space elevation. Grow the same amount in the ground. Alter the soil if you need to. Raising is a double edged sword.

OP why do you want raised beds in the center of your lawn? Don’t you want somewhere for kids to move or they already moved on as you said you already have plenty going on your deck.

Above is a view of the backyard from the opposite end. Yes, it is a very small space. The patio is going to be overrun by pumpkin vines by the end of the summer and I already have a lot of containers. I'm looking to start my fall planting (Zone 9b) in a month so I need space for veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, peas, etc.

I don't need things to look a certain way and while I have little kids (evidenced by their toys and a playhouse on the patio), the backyard can be mine to work with. Our grass has dried out this summer and I was thinking of adding raised beds since I thought it would be a lot less hassle versus trying to dig up the soil and amending it. I would have just put cardboard on the bottom, hammer in nails to some redwood to make a raised planter/bed and then put peat, compost, and soil in it. It seems much less work than trying to work with the existing soil. Then later on if I ever change my mind, I thought it would be relatively easy to remove the bed and put back a lawn if I ever wanted to. With all of that said, would you still think a raised bed/planter is a bad idea? And lastly, I was thinking of a 6-12" high planter, nothing higher than that.

Also, any advice for what to grow in the shaded area? There is a narrow bed to the right of the slide and the space where the shovel is at. I thought of hostas, but are there any veggies or fragrant flowers that will tolerate shade? There used to be a star jasmine that was climbing on the AC unit but I am now thinking of trying out a climbing passionflower vine.

Why can’t you grow your pumpkin patch between the rose bush since they grow flowers it would look pretty once the roses are gone

This is my visual for your landscape. Next to your corn stalks I would add sunflowers and remove the small rose bush next to the white one. Against your home I would add fountain grass on the side of your door.

Passionflower need sun. Most types won't do well in shade. I don't know what part of the country you are in, but unless you are talking about the maypop, that is native to the SE U.S.A, you'll need to be someplace relatively frost free to keep a passionflower outdoors year round.

I've always done raised beds 4'x8'. The middle is a little hard to reach but doable. I think they were 8" tall so adds a little extra soil, but I mainly liked them because it kept the garden looking organized and then everything has it's own little 1 square foot. I think 4'x4' beds would look nice in your garden! I did always dig up the ground inside my beds though to try and loosen the soil up and put wet newspaper down to try and prevent weeds.

My first thought is two long thin beds with a path between them and a path all around.

In my garden, my beds/rows are four feet wide, and my paths are two feet wide. I don't have raised beds or even any kind of physical divider like bender board--I just designate the bed and the path.

Using my preferred measurements in your space would require fourteen feet (2--4--2--4--2), which I think is a little more than you have. I'd probably reduce the bed width instead of the path width--maybe 2--3--2--3--2.

My remaining concern is that if the two beds are the full length of the area there might be a temptation to step on the soil to cross them, to avoid having to walk all the way down. So maybe a stepstone halfway down the length of each bed--or actually split them, lengthwise, with another path.

If you Google

josh sattin new garden beds

and go to Images, you'll see a bunch of pictures of neat flat ground-level beds/rows with paths in between. (No, I have no association with Josh Sattin.) He also has at least one video about creating new beds in a way similar to the way you're planning.