Pallet Planter

During my usual scouring of the internet for cool garden projects (which to me means small, vertical and looks good) I came across wood pallet planters.  These pallet planters provide a cheap, space efficient and readily available (if you are urban anyway) way to grow a variety of plants.

If you keep a look out you see these pallets all over in alleys and behind stores.  Keep in mind that there are different "grades" of pallets and that some them would be no good for vegetables since they are treated with nasty chemicals.

Most of the grocery stores by us always have pallets stacked up in back by the dumpsters.  Fortunately, our third floor tenant is the ultimate picker and he had two pallets for me about 5 minutes after I asked him to find some.  He sort of takes my requests as a challenge and always comes through.  Lucky me.  Most of my projects will feature Dan found materials!

Check this out for good instructions on how to build one (Make sure to read the comments about types of pallets and chemicals).   It is essentially what I did with great success:

Finished pallet planter

Landscape Fabric on the Back

Chicken Wire on the Inside Front

Planted with Lettuce and Flowers, about four weeks after planting seeds

Instead of potting soil I used my usual Square Foot Garden mix, what I use for planting everything, which is: 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 vermiculite.  I hung it up on the garage wall, in part to hide our ugly garage, filled it with the soil mix, then just crammed seeds into the soil.  On top it is filled with bib lettuce and some kind of tiny flowers, then rows of loose leaf lettuce, flowers, purple loose leaf lettuce and more flowers.

I see this lasting about 3-4 years before it falls apart, but we will see.  I plan on building a bunch of these and just covering the garage wall.

Most people think it looks cool, which the exception of the "botany experiment" comment, plus it is super functional and great on space.

Go build one!