>>1765445The first thing you should do is think about what you want to grow. Vegetables? Flowers? Both? Then you take into account your climate zone. Then, check the space during the day every hour or so to see where shadows, if any, appear. Some plants are more tolerant of shade than others.
Once you do that, get some graph paper and do a rough sketch of the space, and make some pathways for yourself. Leaving enough space to weed/tend to the plants is an important part of gardening which will make everything a lot easier. Then you decide if you want to use bins/containers for certain plants, or if you'd rather just plant them directly into the ground, in raised mounds.
If you are growing vegetables, you will want to consider pests, and use tools like ground-cover and other screens to prevent a lot of insects from attacking your plants. You will want to consider how the space will be watered - you can run a slow-drip hose, install some sprinklers, or you can do it manually if necessary.
A good starter vegetable garden should have a mix of plant varieties. If one fails, you will have the others. Squashes, tomatoes, broccoli/lettuce, herbal plants, rhubarb, summer cucumbers, strawberries, carrots, corn, etc. This is a matter of taste. Pick what you like. Try some new things. If you want lots of produce relatively quickly, try some zucchini plants in partial shade.
Also, try using curvy/offset pathways instead of linear ones, so that walking through your garden is like traveling a wandering path. It's a better aesthetic experience.
