Planning edible landscaping no easy task

RIP the tree. It finally blew into two during the latest windstorm. Which means I'm forced to seriously start planning an edible garden.

The problems?

• We're starting from scratch.
• We live on a small plot of land to boot.
• We're at the mercy of the home association, which says such things as gardens need to have goofy 1' fences around them or other ways to show you just don't have dirt and weeds growing there.

So we're trying to figure this edible landscaping out. I've started the hunt, online at least, for fruit trees, and found that the Arbor Day Foundation will ship them in late fall. It's a start; however, I need a tree now for my landscaping requirements. So I'm on the prowl.

My husband and I are suffering from a serious difference of opinion on how to carry out edible landscaping.

My husband prefers the more traditional rectangular gardens, housed within a raised bed.

My feeling it should actually look like, you know, landscaping. Our yards are small enough without the sense that you're being boxed in with more raised beds. (Of course, I also realize how long it took to pull off the raised beds the last time we built them!)

I saw these examples and thought they would be fabulous starting points (can't remember the source, unfortunately.)

What would you do? If you had a postage-stamp lot and small children, how would you make the best of all worlds?