Raised beds are great for those of us who garden on clay, or have back problems and don't want to stoop so much, or who want to grow intensively in small areas. If your soil is well drained, you have a young back, etc., you don't necessarily need them. Everything always has a Dis advantage too. Raised beds dry out much faster than in ground beds, so may require more water.

I don't think that raised beds are "needed" for anything. That being said, it's how I garden, and I love them.

The best recommendation I can give to you is to find a good basic book on gardening and read it. There's lots of great information on these forums, but you'll save yourself alot of time and headaches if you get the basics in a complete and organized fashion. Someone in your zone would be better than I for recommending a good book, since WHERE you garden often dictates HOW you garden. (This also explains why you often get conflicting information on these forums.)

That being said, I would highly recommend the Book "Designing the New Kitchen Garden" by Jennifer Bartley. She gives great information on making a small vegetable garden into an ornamental garden too, through the use of raised beds and french intensive methods.

Good luck!

Mixing in top soil waster your dollars. Stick with lots of compost -- at least two inches a year.

I agree that raised beds are not "needed" for anything. Thousands of gardeners are quite successful just tilling up their ground. I do all types, in-ground, raised beds, containers, sq. foot, etc. and each has its pros and cons. It just all depends on what you have available and what you want to grow.

Since you apparently already have an in-ground garden I'd focus on improving it rather than changing to raised beds now.

Soil improvement is primarily a discussion for the Soil & Compost forum here and you'll find lots of great info there. Basically it boils down to 2 things - 1) get a professional soil test done and add what the soil test tells you is needed, and 2) work into it as much organic matter as you can get your hands on and then add more annually.

It is best to do much of your soil improvement amending in the fall rather than this close to spring planting time but you can still get the soil test done and get started on what it shows is needed.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil forum

Another advantage of raised beds is their positive effect on root vegetables. A lot of people underestimate the depth that those tap roots will reach if allowed to. The deeper they go (usually) the more healthy the carrot/beet/whatever. Raised beds generally increase the depth of reachable soil.

As has already been suggested, stick to compost. If you have the chance grow some green manure before your planting season or after your harvest (clover, vetch, etc) do so and till/rake it under.. the extra organic matter will improve the 'dirt' texture and add some fertility.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Homesteading Adventures

Also when you have young children helping you garden, it teaches them where to walk. Our first raised beds were just that. We hilled the dirt into 4x8 beds with walkways in between then slowly as we added compost and peat to the garden we build 12 inch high wood enclosures. 1 or 2 a year as money allowed. Well actually the first ones were only 6 inch high. but as the rotted over the years we built them higher as we were older.

Raised bed mean they dry out faster in the spring so I get in faster. Also less mud to walk in to pick.