Planting your vegetable garden in raised beds makes everything easier. You can adjust the height of the bed if you find it hard to get up and down. The soil warms up and dries out more quickly in the spring, so you get a head start, transplanting seedlings when everyone else's garden is just muck. Even better, you have total control over the soil in which you're growing your crops.

If you've ever tried to grow carrots in rocky or heavy clay soil, you know what I mean. They come out stunted and gnarled, if they grow at all. Plant them in a raised bed with nice sandy loam, though, and you'll harvest perfect specimens. Other root vegetables such as beets, radishes, turnips and the like also grow much better in raised beds.

Because there will probably be few weed seeds in the soil you use to fill your beds, weeds will be fewer. They can probably be completely controlled with just a little mulch. And because the soil is so light and friable, any that do manage to poke their nasty heads up are easy to yank.

Small Raised Beds

Creating several small raised beds rather than one big one has some advantages. The soil will be ready even earlier in the spring, for one thing, and you can tailor the soil amendments, pH and fertilizers to each separate crop. Peas love nitrogen, for instance, whereas too much nitrogen on your tomatoes will result in dense foliage and no fruit.