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Another problem is protecting plants from deer and elk. They will hop right up on your deck and eat things. We have a deck that goes completely around our house and being that we are on a hill, three sides are hard to reach. The deer would have to walk in from the back side of the house. I'm gambling they won't do that, but we'll see. The deck on the south side of the house could easily be blocked off with a gate, assuming deer won't jump over it because it is a rather restricted space requiring that they negotiate stairs.
I've grown tomatoes and peppers in a simple grow box made from a laundry basket lined with a heavy plastic trash bag with holes poked through all layers for drainage. That was for a class project my son had in school, but worked fairly well. However, I would recommend that you give more thought to what kind of plastic the basket is lined with--something I will definitely look into before I repeat that project. I came across this article on grow boxes, which has some good and fairly simple ideas. Eventually, I hope to build an enclosed garden space somewhere on our property, but that is a project for another day. For now, it will have to be the south deck.
Two other resources that might prove useful for small space gardening are Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza and All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. I used the lasagna method last year and had the best tomatoes by far that I have ever raised. Growing in small spaces with raised beds means completely rethinking how you space your plants. Traditional rows are not necessary. I recommend both these books for small space gardens. They give you a whole new way to think about gardening.
