How to Make a Recycled Pallet Vertical Garden

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Yesterday in between snow flurries, sun, hail, snow, and more sun, I was able to use a few left over strawberry plants to create a wood pallet garden.  I first spotted this great idea at the Seattle Flower & Garden Show in February.

I asked the Handsome Husband if he could find me a couple of good clean pallets asap and he did.  He was able to bring home 2 pallets in great condition the very next day.

Here is how I made my wood pallet garden:

I started by wrapping the back and sides of the pallet with a double layer on landscape fabric.  Landscape fabric can be found this time of year at Costco or pretty much any home and garden store.  After cutting the landscape fabric, I then used an industrial stapler and stapled the fabric to the back and sides of the pallet {use a lot of staples}.

Here is what the back of the pallet looked like before I injected a ton of staples into the fabric.

Next, I set the pallet fabric side down, and filled the openings with potting soil.

You’ll want to make sure you push the soil underneath the slats.

If you don’t, when it comes time to stand your pallet up, the soil will slide, and your plants will end up behind the slats.

Next add your plants.  I filled this one with strawberries, but I plan on filling my next pallet garden with an assortment of herbs.

Here is a picture of the pallet garden up close.  This strawberry garden is still in the ugly duckling stage, but in a few short months the strawberry plants will fill out and cover the exposed dirt.Here is a picture of me with the inspiration for this project.

 I left my pallet on the ground for the time being.  I was afraid to stand it up at this point. I want the plants to have time to wrap their roots around the soil so the strawberry plants will be anchored in place.  In about a month when I stand the pallet upright, I will plant 6 more strawberry plants in the opening at the top of the pallet. 

Pallet Gardening 101: Creating a Pallet Garden

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This year I will be planting a large salad garden, and I thought it would be fun to grow my lettuce and other greens in pallets to change things up a bit in the backyard.

All you really need to do a little pallet gardening is a wood pallet, some good soil and a few seeds. Using a wood pallet to start a garden can be a great space saver, plus as a bonus, there is no soil to til or weed. This is exactly the kind of project young children would love, especially if they could have their own wood pallet.

What to look for in a wood pallet:

If you live in the Tacoma area you can purchase new pallets from Girard Wood Products in Puyallup, Washington for about $9 each. We purchased our pallets here for this years wood pallet garden. The photo you see above is a picture of some recycled wood pallets we found behind buildings last year.

Personally, I suggest using a new, clean, fresh pallet.

But  if you like to live life on the edge, 

Here are a few pointers when looking for recycled pallets:

Look for a pallet that has HT stamped somewhere on the pallet. This means the pallet was heat treated, or kiln dried as opposed to chemically treated.

Because you can never be sure that chemicals were stored on an old pallet or that there is some sort of bacteria lurking inside the recycled pallets, I would scrub the wood down with some bleach and soapy water and let it dry out before using it to plant anything.

Also, watch out for old, rusty nails or staples.

When I first pictured my wood pallet garden, I thought I would only use 3 wood pallets. But every time I walked by something about it didn’t look right. So I decided to expand the pallet garden to include 6 wood pallets.

One of the cool things about gardening, is that there are so many different ways to grow food. So many containers to chose from, and more growing methods than I care to imagine. Everybody has an opinion, and there own way of doing things. And I think that’s the best part.

No two gardens will ever been the same, or have the same growing conditions, but the desire to try new things is something we all have in common. Wouldn’t you agree?

So here we go. This is my new pallet gardening area.  I planted more lettuce seeds this morning, and I’m ready to get started. Next on the agenda is getting the area mulched so it looks a little more put together and like it belongs in a suburban backyard.