Raised beds save time and your back! Get your garden up and growing more quickly while creating a healthier place for your plants.
The idea for using raised beds may have come out of a suggestion in the book Permaculture 1 (1978). Instead of tilling the soil, it recommended putting heavy cardboard on top of the soil, piling on a very thick mulch, letting it compost all winter, and planting in the spring. This preserves and nourishes the bio live and soil health instead of disrupting it like digging does.
Bed kits make this easy as well as projects like converting lawns to gardens. They also take a big part of the work away, make it faster and easier to start planting, keep you from having to bend down as far, and aerate the soil much better. If you have time and inclination in future years, you can put rocks or wood around the perimeter and holes in the bottom to let the earthworms in more easily. Some like to keep adding a layer each year or two slowly raising it as we get older and can't bend down as easy!