Raised beds are great. My husband and I have had them for 8 years. We started out with 6 and have since grown to 10 of them. They are 4' wide by 8'long. Living in the south we have to contend with nut grass in our garden and with the raised beds, we don't have the problem of the plants competing with the grass to grow.
Every year we usually have 2 plantings -- our early spring crop then our summer crop. It takes some initial work to get started, but the outcome is great.
We started this after finding and reading a book called "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew. You can find his book at amazon.com.
We love it and would suggest it for anyone.