We do the same sort of thing in our clay-soil garden here in Virginia. We just till the whole thing with a rototiller, mark off where the beds and the aisles should be, and then shovel the loose dirt out of the aisles up onto the beds and level them off. The beds end up being about 5" high, and since the soil is clay, they pretty much stay that way all summer without washing away. It's the old-fashioned "raised bed" method, from before people started building all these structures in their gardens. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)
I often till in some LeafGro (composted leaf mulch), or hand dig it into the planting beds before planting. Sometimes in the fall I dig in some regular leaf mulch from the county, because it's free -- I add it to the heaviest clay areas where the soil really needs some help. We also lay down a thick layer of the free leaf mulch in all the aisles in spring each year, and that composts over the summer into nice, rich black stuff that we dig into the beds in the fall or till in the following spring.
Some years I add Bumper Crop or manure to the tomato and pepper beds before planting, but at the price of Bumper Crop these days, I feel like I'm dumping gold coins in there. We add our own compost to the planting holes as well.
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