Planning the yard for the year

I've been watching the snow slowly melt out of the yard - very slowly... excruciatingly slowly. It has even snowed again a few times and last night the temperatures dropped back down into the low 20's just to spite my desire to start fixing up the yard. I swear that was the only reason it turned cold again, well, that and the fact I am starting plants for the garden.

I want to get out there and get some garden beds built up to a height that my dad can move down the row in his wheel chair and work on tending to the gardens. Plant some lettuce and cabbage and carrots and radishes and the like at in some planters about waist height off the ground.

I also need to haul out the outdoor furniture and see what needs to be replaced or repaired. I know that a few of the chairs are in need of some work, and I might need to make a new top for my dad's yard swing. Need to get that out of the shed and see about it.

I don't want to make a very high maintenance yard though,since we still want to do a bunch of traveling around Alaska this year and it would be hard to do that if the garden would die off when we spent a week traveling to the gold fields and such. So my main plan is to plant easy to maintain stuff and focus on areas to just enjoy the yard with an outdoor seating area decorated with outdoor furniture and maybe a few gazebo outdoor places covered by mosquito mesh.