My recently attended permaculture design course revealed that one easy way to convert grass land into veggie beds is to use a chicken tractor. The idea is simple: instead of pulling out all the grass by hand, let the chicken eat it. They also scratch the ground and add wonderful fertilizer. After a couple of days the tractor is moved to the next spot and so on.
So I went out to buy some thin timber boards at a local saw mill (the tractor should be as light a possible), two rolls of squared chicken wire, plenty of screws and an awesome new mitre saw at Mitre10. Building the tractor took quite some time, about 10 hours total, spread over a couple of days, but it’s a lot of fun to create things. :)