I suddenly realized that besides not posting all that much lately, I never described my growing area!
My growing area is roughly 8'x20'. It's a fenced in area that I built up on the side of my house. My benches are pallets, resting on cinder blocks. The pallets are lined up against the fence side, creating a walkway next to the house.
For watering, I use sprinklers set on top of 3 foot risers. It's a homemade setup, made from PVC. I have a hose that runs to the front of the house so that all I need to do to water is to turn on the water. I just recently installed an automatic watering system, so I don't even need to go outside to water the trees.
For shade I installed 70% shade cloth. The summer sun is so intense here that my plants were scorching a bit, so I installed another 70% shade cloth on top. This seemed to do the trick.
I fertilize twice a week using full strength miracle grow. Not everything gets fertilized at once, as I do a quick once over, but it seems to be working.