Raised Beds vs. SWCs?

[teribeth]

We're considering doing a major overhaul of our side yard and converting it to a huge garden area. It gets a lot of sun light but right now the soil isn't in great shape. We had been thinking of doing raised beds but now I'm wondering if it would be worth my while to build a bunch of self-watering containers. It gets hot here in the summer and I'd much rather only water every few days instead of every day (and still lose some plants). I have a couple five gallon SWCs but what we're considering would be a more large-scale effort with multiple eighteen gallon totes, so I thought I'd ask those with more experience with using each method in the long term.

Picture of the space I'm talking about:


We're going to be relocating the patio entirely so this whole area is going to become a fenced off garden.