MAP you sound like you have everything under control. Have you decided what you are going to plant?

LuLu,

My only advice for your landlord is she raise the bed as high as possible to get away from the clay. What she ends up in the way of a garden will only be as good as the soil she is growing in and I can't think of a single edible garden plant that likes clay. Good luck. BTW, LuLu will you be fenced in or fenced out of this area?

I have alot of clay soils here to deal with too. I dig out at least 12 inches of the clayey soils (18 to 20 is even better), then amend them with some Clay Buster amendments. That is what the stuff here is called "Clay Buster". I also add in some nice rich compost like mushroom compost or even some home made stuff. I add in some play sand to the mix as well to help with the drainage of the soils. If the clay is real bad, I will lay in some perforated pipe from the low corner of the garden out into a pea gravel lined trench a good 8 feet out from the garden area and at the end make a bit of a pea and 3/4 gravel drainage area. It is alot of work but I can tell you it works well and is well worth the intial effort. Just digging out and amending the soils is not enough if the clay is bad. It will hold the water too much at the root zone and thus end up rotting the root systems. I firmly believe in creating a drainage path to get the water away from the garden so that just enough stays to give them the moisture they need.

Stan the Roseman 

The clan of daffodil bulbs are notoriously toxic and it's the reason why they survive in old California graveyards while everything else is consumed by gophers and other wildlife.  So I started ringing my young fruit trees and gardens with these bulbs that are not only beautiful cut flowers but naturalize easily.  Don't know much about wood chucks but they often discourage wildlife which is hesitant to dig through a thick daffodil "moat".  Buy them in quantities for naturalizing for the best price.