Wicking garden beds for the dry season

We have a good-sized garden, and as any (deluded) home farmer, we decided we’d grow food. We had the occasional tomato and lettuce out of it, but low-to the ground garden beds proved to be a lot of effort for a rather disappointing yield. A large part of the effort was in the perpetual need to weed out anything whose seed landed into the bed, and, adding insult to injury, having to bend down low to the ground for the privilege. Another problem was with the watering of those precious crops during the dryer months. I already have a ram pump to lift water from the nearby creek to the top of the garden, but distributing the water was left as an exercise to the reader. Spray watering uses a lot of undirected water, and dries out to evaporation quickly. Drip watering only keeps small areas moist. What do? In a quest for a better garden bed, we happened upon the concept of wicking beds. They are higher-from-the ground garden beds, with lower substrate able to hold a lot of water. On top of…