Pallet Garden Update

Just a update on the pallet garden. It is doing great. You can see the zucchini and yellow squash on the left getting big, and the herbs, onions and tomato plants on the left.

I do think I will have to move the tomato plants at some point, I am worried that they will get to big for the pallet. F or some reason I envisioned them growing down like vines.

I need to get some time this weekend to make some pallet pots for them and also some troughs for more onions.

Pallet Garden

This weekend's project was a pallet garden!

Saturday me and the family went to Lowe's and got two tomato plants, one pepper plant, two zucchini, two yellow squash, one watermelon and a couple of herb plants for our garden. I also got a couple of bags of potting soil.





Things you will need for this project:

1. A Pallet
2. Rubber Hammer
3. Claw Hammer
4. Pry bar
5. Ground cloth
6. Poultry net staples (or a Staple Gun with Staples )
7. Plants
8. Potting soil

I already had ground cloth and the poultry net staples from a previous project so I just grabbed one of my pallets and went to work. The first thing I did was made sure I had space between each plank on the top for my plants. On the above picture you can see the top and bottom of the pallet have three planks so I had to remove the middle one to allow for planting.

 After removing those planks with the pry bar and rubber hammer I took out any left over nails with the claw hammer. I then started to add the ground cloth. You want to make sure you put the cloth on the "inside" of the pallet so that the back planks support the soil. If you just put the cloth over the back of the whole pallet the soil will get behind the planks and can cause the cloth to tear away when watered. I also made sure I only added two "rows" of cloth so that all the soil wasn't weighing down on the very bottom of the pallet. So attach the cloth to the top of the pallet, then to the sides of the pallet between the planks and work your way down. A staple gun with save you a lot of time as this took me forever using the net staples and a hammer.

 Once that was finished I added the soil. Be sure to wet your soil before adding it because it will shrink some. Once the soil was in I leaned the pallet against the trailer and started adding my plants.

 I also made a second smaller pallet planter but since it was so small I just added ground cloth to the sides and back and I put this one on the ground instead of leaning it up against something. I did have to remove a couple of planks to allow space for plants.

Zucchini, yellow squash, watermelon!

 

It took me a few hours to do this, I think it would have been more like one if I had a staple gun. I will get more pictures as this garden develops.

Pallet Garden - Weekend Project

Source: themicrogardener.com via William on Pinterest

So my weekend project will be this pallet garden. I basically want to only plant on the top row. I will be adding ground cloth to the back to hold soil and then will be planting herbs on the very top of the pallet and then tomatoes on the first opening on the face of the pallet.

I am thinking 4-8 tomato plants... I don't want to over crowed them but I do want to have a lot of tomatoes. I am also thinking of making another pallet for eggplant, squash and zucchini. This will be a fun project that me and my daughter can do and will help us save space in my yard because I will be able to lean these against the house. I will post pics this weekend of us working on the project to give step by step instructions on how to build your own!

20 Pallet garden tricks, my pallets and beyond!

20 Creative Ways to Upcycle Pallets in Your Garden

I started with the link because that's something I found today while browsing Pinterest. I have a section for pallet pins Here.

So anyway, my schedule is starting to clear up and besides trying to start a custom cake business with my wife (see her amazing cakes Here), I have been feeling better and want to get into pallets once again. As you can see I have a "trailer" load of pallets.

So far I have learned that "refurbished" pallets are a pain to take apart. Basically a refurbished pallet is one that had broken at one time and then someone fixed using parts from other pallets. These pallets tend to have five times as many nails in them. The side boards on the one I'm working on are basically unusable since they have so many nails in them. I still plan to use them but I will be losing the 2x4 support beams since they are so riddles with nails.

My first major project is going to be a chest. Like a treasure chest. I want to build the box on the bottom and then I will have to figure out how to build the rounded top. I want to decorate it with leather straps if I can find some and possibly some metal rivets... we will see.

The wife also is interested in having a few of the planter pallets seen in the gardening tricks page. I really like them as well and always wanted a small garden.

Well that about does it for now, I really want Pallet Wurks to take off and will be putting time into it. I'm sure I will also be putting time into cakes so I'm sure I'll start another blog for that.