Growing your first garden takes time, patients and a ton of imagination. If you have been following me during this journey then you know I have been on a mission to build all of my own gardening boxes...and without spending a ton of money on them. Pallets man, it's the way to go! I have picked up almost all of my pallets free and therefore I have no fear of what they may turn into...Take this bad boy for example.
Vertical Pallet Box
This is a half pallet. I believe it measures 22 x 44. This to me looked like a stand up garden planter that could hold things at the top, things sown into the pockets and a good way for more vine driven plants to hang. This was by far the more simple of my projects. This design allows for some serious creativity as well as diversity in your planting plan. You can plant a variety of plants and keep them all organized. This would be the perfect box for flowers, herbs or green beans and peas. Wait till you see what I have done with mine!
Weed guard people!!! It is a gardeners best friend!! Breathable..pliable..cheap and will save you a ton of time, building materials and carbon foot print in your garden. I started with a bunch of packages I picked up at the dollar tree and was highly impressed. You get a good chunk for a buck, enough to cover the back of this project and you can't beat the price. This was the last and only small box I have created for this years garden, so for my bigger projects I went to Grocery Outlet and they had a huge roll for $7. I am now on my third project with it and have material to spare. Its a small cost but the time and energy it saves along with the health benefits of breathable materials...it pays for itself! Trust me people..get some!
What you need:
A 22x44 half pallet
A roll of weed guard
Staple gun
Staples
Sand paper
Stain and water seal.
Sand the bad boy down, mainly to a point that you won't suffer splinters should you brush up against them. If your pallet came perfect than you can skip this part. Once you've done that take your roll of weed guard and cover the back..from top to bottom and tuck it under the pallet base. Basically, wrap the entire back, tuck under the guard the entire bottom of the pallet and staple it to the very bottom of the front. This will allow for a huge pocket to form inside the pallet.
Stand the pallet upright and look down in it. Use the back board, shown in the photo to the left, and staple your weed guard to the top ledge of the board. Be sure the material is flat and straight. Staple it to the ledge of this board, all the way across until you reach the other side. Drape the guard across the entire back of the pallet, tucking it under the entire board and stapling it to the front portion of the pallet. Then begin stapling the guard down both sides of the pallet..Your staples should be fairly close together. Don't worry about the way it looks just yet, we won't be stopping with just the back covered.
Continue stapling the material down both sides of the back of the pallet, again be sure that your material is as flat and as smooth as possible. Wrap the material under the pallet and attach it to the front board of the pallet, just at the very bottom. In this you create a total pocket from top to bottom and covered the bottom without it being seen later. Please comment should you need a more directed tutorial on that part, feel free to leave comments below. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.
The reason I chose to just staple to material to the ledge of the back board was because I saw an amazing opportunity to make that space into another unique place for flowers or plants at the top of the pallet, and a good way to cover up my not so awesome staple job.
I lay the material across the top of the pallet, between the two top boards and then lay my arm down in the middle of the material to form a pocket. Once the pocket was at the depth I wanted, I stapled it down to everything it touched and across all 4 sides.
This can be done several ways and used for just as many. I now have a place at the top and at the bottom for plants to grow in but should I feel froggy, I could lay the entire pallet on its back, fill it with dirt and add hanging plants and flowers to make it a standing pallet wall planter. But instead I chose to take advantage of the room it gave me and plant at the top and at the bottom, allowing room for plants to grow upwards and hang over.
Once I had this planter all together, I started to arrange the boxes I have made and one that was given to me, to form a section of my garden layout. Notice that my plans are sitting on the ground next to the boxes below? That is because I drew this out several times before I knew what would work, I had to move these pieces around a bit but at the end of the day, I designed my first plant corral. Every idea or every plan and every drawing is very important in the process. You learn new things everyday and by keeping a record of it in your journal you can more easily keep track of your progress, changes, dimensions and ideas.
In one of my past posts, I had already created the bean box and the small box below was given to me. I decided that I needed a place for garden tools and hiding empty planters, ect. So I grabbed the pallet you see in the middle and it has become my catch all. I have portioned out the empty top sections and it is now the best shovel, umbrella, tool holder in the world. I will show you what I mean in an upcoming post. What I love the most about this design is that its universal. Nothing is totally attached to anything permanent and I can move this around or change out boxes as my experience grows. I am not stuck to one design or another.
I stared at this entire section forever it seemed like and then it hit me. Based on my growing zone, the path of the sun, heat and privacy I made a small improvement to the vertical planter to allow for corn or another tall vegetable to be planted. This will allow for shade, privacy in my garden and a nice touch to the uglier side of your planters.
I just took some scraps I had laying around the garage and created this back portion. I worked for a newspaper at the time and found these really cool aluminum sheets that I recycled from the newspaper printing process. These made excellent accents as well as front panels for this project. Most papers have them and only cost about .50 each. This was the day I decided that all of my boxes should be aluminum and wood tones...I freaking love it.
Honestly I did not measure this portion, nor did I really have a plan. Sometimes you don't and it makes it even better...you don't always have to have a plan. I had no idea that I needed to create this until I stared at it long enough...then it just made sense.
While working at the paper I found a box of these old newspaper boxes that the company no longer needed. DUDE...these are the perfect planters! They come with holes already in them, they are the perfect size for planters and they were FREE! But we will talk about that a bit more in detail in a later post. If all you have is a plan to make something awesome..then you have enough to get started. Just do it man...
It took a while but not to long ago I decided it really needed some color, so I stained it. This is what my vertical box looks like today.
Currently I have Beans, peppers and peas growing at the bottom and at the top I have flowers beans and pea's. With a few decorations and the desire to find inner peace, my project is complete...for now.
Now, with all this being said I would just like to once again state that this was the easiest project I have done to date and took less than 45 minutes all together. You can do this too. This required no skill, very little tools and its so versatile that I can see reinventing this box time and time again.
There is nothing that can not be accomplished with support, love and the desire to find yourself in your own creations!
Until Next Time!
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