Dapto, NSW

A customer in Dapto wanted to make the most of a strip of lawn just in front of a raised deck — a sunny, sheltered spot that was doing nothing much beyond growing grass. Two raised beds turned it into a productive suntrap, with an accessible height that makes them easy to tend from the deck and a built-in composter to keep the soil fed.

Turning a patch of lawn into a working veggie garden is one of the easiest wins in a Dapto backyard, and a pair of beds in front of a deck uses the space without crowding it. Being wicking beds, they hold water in a reservoir underneath and draw it up to the roots, which suits the Illawarra's swings between wet spells and dry ones — the soil stays evenly moist whatever the weather is doing.

There's room across the two beds for a real range of crops, from leafy greens and root veg to tomatoes and beans, with a trellis easily added later for climbers up against the deck. Lifted, lined and self-watering, they keep producing with very little day-to-day attention.

We build our beds from kiln-dried, vegetable-grade timber with a food-safe finish, made to last years in a busy family yard. If you've a strip of lawn or a spot by the deck in Dapto, Horsley or the wider Illawarra you'd like to turn into a productive garden, we'd be glad to help you plan it.