Hey Kristin, I'm a noob when it comes to raised beds myself, but I can tell you that when the ground freezes, you will have frost heaval. This will crack the mortar in the joints of your brickwork if you don't pour a boot of foundation of some kind. Being in zone 8, I would bet that your frostline, the depth to which the ground freezes during winter, is very shallow. You would not need a massive foundation ring, I would bet that just 4-6 inches with 2 pieces of 1/4" rebar would do very nicely. It would be worth it in the long run, I think, becasue tearing down, cleaning and re-mortaring bricks is an ugly, hard and messy job. Brickwork that is cracked, that has shifted or is outright falling apart is ugly as well. Do it right the first time, you'll thank yourself every day when you DON'T have to re-do all your work. Keep in mind also, then once you have made anything involving brick or concrete, moving this later is a job so close to impossible, that it may as well be just that; impossible. Tearing this ind of stuff down is either very labor-intensive or costly. Be careful when you plan something so permenant. Personally, if I had a whole bunch of vintage brick laying around, I would use them to lay around my raised bed made of wood, making an attractive border for the bed or even a small area to stand on while working around the bed. Hope I helped :)

You need to keep an eye but the probable cause is that the lintel/header was too short, I mean, not enough bearing. If the cracks get wider or if the lintel start to deflect, most likely the lintel was under designed and eventually you will need to change it. Can you find out what kind of lintel or header they used?

Seriously lady? It's not gonna start spitting bricks out like a Pez dispenser... It's MUCH MUCH WORSE. But as has been mentioned, it won't happen for years down the road. When it does, any brickwork has the potential of falling over and/or separating from other brickwork. Although this js not common for a wall just to fall over. It all depends on the LOAD. What I've personally witnessed is structures such as chimneys separating from the house, leaning, and if not repaired, fall over away from the house. I've seen it at least 5 times, though only one had fallen. The others had a serious lean, and had detached from the house anywhere from a serious crack, up to about 6 inches. If you get cracks, it'll have to be redone. Though most of the bricks can be reused. It's something you DON'T want to chance. And you need to document all this in case the mason won't redo it for free. Just be polite yet firm. You can also have it inspected. Most realty companies will do it for free if they think you are selling your house. Good luck, look for cracks and leans. Above all, don't buy crack.

I have been looking at the picture of your window with the crack. I agree with Summit. The lentil above the window should of been sitting on a full brick not a cut in half brick. Poor brick mason work. There also should of been a lentil above the wood piece. The wood piece is also acting as support for the brick above. I would of personally had the hole thing brick and the wood piece applied to the brick just as decoration. Wood expands, contracts and eventually being a natural product decays . It is not good to support brick. This kind of decoration on this style of homes is suppose to done with concrete or stone slab. Not wood. You now only have two windows with this problem at the present, but I expect the rest of the windows will also develop cracks in the brick. On a less than 2 year old house I would have them either remove the bad section of brick and add a lentil above the wood and re-install the brick or just have them take that wood piece out all together and make it all brick by an experienced bricklayer or fork over some money and have a slab of concrete or stone replace the wood.