First lessons learned

Today was the first day I worked "with" my new raised beds, that is I planted something and worked the beds.  It was a bit impulsive, was at the supply store picking up manure and there were some winter veggies and I grabbed them.  I learned or observed a couple things Today:

• 36" is too wide for a row.  On several occasions I wanted to step over the row or plant on the other side and it was too wide for my short stubs
• Using chopped-up sod for the bed base makes digging transplant holes a bit more work that it needs to be.  It remains to be seen if the soil quality will benefit from the inclusion of old sod, if it does then I suppose it might be worth it
• It's best to break up clumps in bagged soil and amendments BEFORE casting out on the rows, otherwise you need to break it up on the row which ends up knocking a lot of material into the paths
• Pack down the top layer just a bit before attempting to drag a furrow, it makes it easier to control the depth correctly