Do you hate mowing the lawn? Or (like me) do you have a lawn that’s not worth mowing? Then look no further. I have just the answer for you.

Well, it was really an answer for me. You see, our lawn actually isn’t a lawn. It is more of a weedfield. There are probably about 20 dandelions and 100 clover patches per square metre. They are dense and close together such that from afar you would be forgiven for mistaking it as plush, green, soft grass.

Why waste your time mowing weeds?

My solution for our lawn (and if you want to do the same, make sure you choose the sunniest lawn patch) was to build a raised garden bed. Just remember that if you want to do the same, choose the sunniest spot in the lawn (at least 5 hours of sunlight in winter) so that you can grow veggies all year round.

The result is a fairly inexpensive patch of dirt for you to use to grow veggies, fruits, flowers – you name it.

I started off by buying a treated pine crate from the local hardware store. It was only $50 and comes flat packed for you to assemble. It is 120cmx120cmx30cm. The 30cm depth is ideal for vegetables and their roots. You also need 16 bags of soil (25L each), in the following approximate proportions:

– 5 bags of organic garden soil

– 7 bags of organic compost

– 3 bags of organic potting mix

– 1 bag of organic cow manure

All in all, I spent around $180.oo.

As our soil is mostly clay and the existing lawn slopes upwards, I had to dig a solid foundation for the treated pine box to rest in. See below.

As you can see below, I’ve made the “foundation” with just a sharp shovel. I also used a spirit level and spent countless tries placing the treated pine box on and taking it off then scraping the foundation lower until all 4 sides were level.

See our wonderful dandelions?

Most importantly though, you can see how the raised garden bed sits well into the foundation I prepared. Someone must have dug that up really well. REALLY well right?

This picture below shows the crate halfway filled. As I fill it, I use a pitchfork to mix the soil in so that all the different types of soil is evenly distributed. I also added 2-3 handfulls of chicken manure (dynamic lifter) and forked that in.

The raised garden bed went over 2 existing pavers our gardener put in a long time ago. I dug them up and re-positioned them in front of the raised garden bed to stand on.

My mum wanted to plant some Won Bok (also known as Napa Cabbage, Kimchi Cabbage, Chinese Cabbage) to start off with. We just planted all 6 seedlings from the punned straight into the soil.

I also planted two curly kale plants as well which I stole from another of our garden beds.

After we planted the veggies, we watered them in with a watering can mixed with liquid fertiliser (seasol) to help the roots establish.

And Voila! A raised garden bed.

For extra measure, I added about 30 worms from our compost bin to give the soil a bit of a boost.

Hopefully in a few weeks we will see some production happen!

I will add more photos later as it grows.