April showers bring May flowers, as they say, and this Spring why not plant those flowers in a hand-crafted flower box or raised bed garden constructed from repurposed pallets?
Among the past year’s numerous quarantine hobbies, including baking, crocheting blankets, playing card games with my housebound parents, and reading a lot, I also partook in the home gardening craze. And while, sadly, I am no longer at home in Vermont to replant my garden this spring, the raised bed and flower box I created remain, offering yet another opportunity to partake in self-sufficiency and sustainable food production, if only on a micro-level.
Shuttered away from the COVID-ravaged grips of society, I admit that I, like many others over the past year, was going a bit stir crazy. My freshly unemployed restlessness compelled me to contact a local brewery in search of heat-treated pallets from which to construct a raised bed garden.
One of the main tenets of environmentalism is the principle of the 3 Rs: Reduce, reuse, recycle. The concept of repurposing used pallets hits upon all three of these important facets of waste reduction.
If gardening perhaps is not your thing, or space constraints prohibit this from being a feasible project for you, check out this YouTube video for 50 innovative ideas of how to reuse wood pallets—building everything from outdoor hot tubs to desks, shelves, or wall art.
For the purposes of this post, I am going to focus on constructing a raised bed garden from wood pallets, however I also made a shelf and a small flower box using the reclaimed wood, so you can by all means get creative with it.
I followed this YouTube tutorial for step by step instructions on how to turn old pallets into a raised bed garden.
Perhaps I was misled by the ease with which the British narrator appeared to seamlessly deconstruct and salvage the materials, nails included, from the pallets using nothing but hand tools, but for whatever reason I was steadfastly determined to deconstruct the pallets and put together the raised beds using only the power of my own hands and the tools I could wield without electricity.In retrospect, I would highly recommend using power tools, such as drills and sawzalls in the deconstruction and assembly process. Using screws instead of nails also imparts the added benefit of being able to easily deconstruct and reconstruct the raised bed pallet between seasons for winter storage or to relocate the bed with greater ease.
However, whether or not you choose to use power or hand tools, the very first step in this endeavor is to find the pallets. Many breweries have spare pallets they are happy to part with, and I sent a simple email to a brewery in my neighboring town and was told I could help myself to any of the pallets lined up beside the dumpster. Warehouses or stores like REI often have pallets for the taking. Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace are also places you can look to find a source of pallets.
If you are constructing a raised bed garden with the intention of growing food that you plan to consume or feed to others, be sure that the pallets are marked with the HT heat-treated symbol to ensure that they are non-toxic and safe to use in a garden setting.
I borrowed my Dad’s truck and grabbed several pallets, finding it useful to have extra material to work with in case the pallets cracked or broke during the deconstruction process (spoiler alert: they did)!
After procuring the pallets, I got to work prying the slats apart and salvaging as much of the wood as I could. I used a crowbar and hammer, but again, the use of power tools would have aided me greatly in this process. However, it can be done without power tools and felt at least nominally empowering to do so.
With the slats freed for reuse, I followed the tutorial and pieced the sides together. (Note: if you don’t love this style of bed, peruse the internet for other styles, as there are many iterations of the DIY pallet raised bed garden out there).
The soil at my house is full of rocks—hence the desire for a raised bed—so I took a trip to a local nursery and got a truckload of soil. You can also plant in compost, perhaps obtained from your very own backyard compost?! Check out my earlier post on backyard composting to get started today.
Based on the dimensions of your raised bed, you can use this Soil Calculator to determine the quantity of soil or compost needed to fill your bed.
Once the bed was constructed and in place and the soil was on-hand, I laid down a layer of cardboard in the bottom of the bed to suppress weed growth.
With the cardboard in place, I filled the raised bed with soil and got to planting. Tip: Used popsicle sticks offer an excellent way to mark out your rows of vegetables (or whatever you’re planting).
In creating as low-impact and as self-sustaining of a garden as possible, I recommend collecting rainwater (see my post on rainwater catchment systems) and utilizing at-home compost to enrich the soil of your garden bed.
Daily watering, weeding, and monitoring for pests offers a great opportunity to get outside, and harvesting your own fresh greens and vegetables offers a unique sense of satisfaction that is difficult to replicate elsewhere. If nothing else, for the inexperienced gardeners among us, tending your own garden can be a humbling experience that connects us more closely to our food systems and renews our sense of appreciation for farmers everywhere.
I enjoyed delicious salads and numerous tomatoes, carrots, and radishes from my garden, and I felt pride in growing my own food, albeit only a small portion of it, in a garden I had built myself. In reducing, reusing, and recycling, I was able to enhance my self-sufficiency and continue my journey toward greener living.
It is my hope that trying this project could do the same for you.
Stay well, and as always, let me know how it goes in the comments section below.
~Sam
