Have a friend that decided to grow his own food an easy way; he got big barrels filled with leaf compost and organic mixture. He planted his seeds; no critters could get up the barrels. The sun warmed the barrels, early plantings survived, the soil stayed moist and the plants thrived like crazy, no weeds took nutrients. He has ten fold what he needed and we enjoyed extra organic vegetables. Anyone can do it and you don't need a lot of space.