If I had a choice and space wasn't a concern… I'd just dig up a patch of ground.   We did that when we lived on our acreage in Alberta.  I liked having nice long rows of veggies and hills and hills of potatoes and my row of sweet peas.   I liked the way it looked and especially liked being able to move about between the rows.  And we always had a great garden.

Shells my brother in law built raised beds for my sister out of old railroad ties.

HTH

anni

Hello labanan, welcome to a fellow Canadian.  Hubby grew up in Nova Scotia, but we are living in the States now. 

Anyway, for our square foot garden beds, we used 2X6s that we bought from our local Habit ReStore.  They sell used and surplus building supplies at a fraction of the cost of buying it at a hardware store.  I'm not sure where in Nova Scotia you are, but I checked the Habit for Humanity website and it says that there is a ReStore in Dartmouth.

Hubby cut the 2×6s to size and screwed them together at the corners as that would hold together better than using nails.  I painted the outside (not inside) so that the boards would look nice and last longer.   If I remember, it cost us about $10 for two 4'X4' garden boxes not including the cost of the soil to fill them.

I have built some garden things, cold frame, with untreated wood and have found that it will last, even in damp ground, for 3-4 years before being so rotten it has to be replaced. I am going to build a retaining wall for some gardening and am using old cedar posts and rails from fencing. If you can get them, the cedar will last a lot longer than ordinary wood.

I had to laugh at the title of this topic. I've had veggie gardens in different places where I've lived for the past 20 years, but have never had the "perfect" garden. Nature makes sure it doesn't happen.    But I have had the best luck with with just having the soil plowed up to start, mulching plants with straw when the garden is all planted to keep down weeds and hold moisture, and plowing or tilling it all under in the fall. Also, we add a load of well rotted manure in the fall.  Good luck!

I couldn't figure out how ANYONE was going to have a "perfect" garden! 

Some of my "garden" will probably end up mixed in with some of my flower beds!  That works for me!

I definitely recommend square foot method, even if you plow up a rectangle and section it into square feet. I find it perfect for lettuce and spinach, because you don't have to have that many seeds. You can make several smaller beds, one large one in any shape you want, anything.

The soil depends on what you're working with. If you have good soil you can just plow it under. To tell, when it's not wet or dry out, squeeze a handful. If it clumps, too much clay. If it falls apart, not enough organic matter. If it holds and then breaks apart easily, good stuff. In any case, lots of organic compost will take care of it sooner or later, but in clay, a raised bed is your best bet. Put lots of compost in those, too.

A trick for weed control is, plow your plots, let them sit about 10 days or so to let the weed and grass seeds sprout, them till them under. You'll have a lot less problems with weeds coming up through your mulch. Mulch deep. Don't walk on the planting areas, you don't want to compact the soil, and you don't want to till every year because you'll unbalance the good bacteria in the soil, and kill the earthworms. Speaking of which, wait until it's pretty dry before you till, because the worms will be deeper in the soil and you won't end up with clods of hard pack mud.

For raised bed, cinder blocks are ugly but they're cheap and work great, and you can fill the holes with soil and plant flowers in them to make the garden prettier. Also they heat up during the day and hold the heat longer in the soil at night, which has always helped me to get veggies earlier and keep them longer. This year, though, I'm going right into the ground, because it's a new yard and I don't have money to buy soil. Also, composite lumber is much safer than treated and will last a long, long time so it's worth the money, BUT, cedar is a good option for natural wood that will last quite a while.

A raised bed will also help if you have a bad back, and if you're keeping your garden in that place for a long time, you may eventually have a bad back and be glad you built raised beds! lol

Save yourself money and health, and don't use chemicals. There are SO, SO many other options, and in a home garden you usually don't ever need to use chemicals. It's not that much space to deal with. Lots of compost will feed the garden. Rotating crops is important. Companion planting is a good thing if you feel like reading up on it. There are so many things you can spray on the plants that aren't chemicals if you need to.

Have fun gardening!!