Plant your desired crops. Irrigate each time until water drains from bottom of bed. Fertilize twice monthly with a balanced fertilizer. For example, lettuce seeds require daylight to germinate so plant them one-quarter inch deep. It is clearly listed for each vegetable on the seed packet.
Moisture keeps the soil soft.
It will even tell you to cover the seedlings with some mulch. Water more often until the seeds emerge, then less often but for longer periods of time through to harvest. This pushes the roots deeper to meet the plant's demands when it gets hot. Beet roots will not expand and carrots become gnarled. Do the thinning when the plants get 2 inches tall.