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I think the raised bed approach would work best for the vegetables you mentioned. We built ours last spring using cedar planks and they have held up really well through the weather. The soil mixture we used was a combination of topsoil compost and vermiculite which gave us good drainage. You might want to consider adding a drip irrigation system to make watering easier during the summer months. We found that putting landscape fabric underneath helped prevent weeds from coming up through the bottom. If you decide to go with a similar setup I can send you the measurements we used for the frames. The tomatoes and peppers did particularly well in that configuration.

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