Pallet Garden Update and FAQ - How Did They Hold Up?

How did the reclaimed pallet wood garden beds hold up? It has been a year since we have put these free raised beds into action and they have done us well so far. Throughout the last year this project has become fairly popular and there have been some common questions that I thought I would try to answer here.

Will the pallet wood  hold up to moister over the long term? This is a very valid concern and one that I, quite honestly, shared as well. They have only been through one year so far but as far as I can tell they have held up perfectly. I do not see any signs of rotting where the soil has been in contact with the wood and the outside of the wood has aged nicely. Only time will tell the full story here but I would guess we can get about 5 years out of these before we start noticing any issues.





Aren't pallets treated with chemicals that are unsafe for your garden? The wood that we are using from the pallets was all heat treated and this is something you should look for when using it for food production. We also lined the first set of beds with greenhouse plastic since the wood had some oil staining on it we didn't want in the soil.





What soil mix are we using? Last year we decided to try the square foot gardening method with these raised beds. With that came using the Mel's mix soil mixture that consists of 1/3 compost 1/3 peat and 1/3 vermiculite. This is a very nice soil mix however it can get pretty expensive to fill beds of this size and vermiculite is hard to source locally. We ended up having to order ours online  and it was not cheap! In an effort to keep costs down after we had already ordered the vermiculite we ended up probably not putting in enough compost and good nutrients and added more peat as a filler. Needless to say in the end the growth we had was not stellar. We were happy with our little gardens but this year we want to focus on filling them for less and increasing production.

I will have another article soon with our new method of soil fill for the four new pallet beds that I have just built, stay tuned for more on that. We are focusing on locally sourced and bulk materials rather than as much big box store products.





Do you put landscape cloth in the bottom of the beds? This question comes up often and then answer to that is yes and no. With the two original beds I put together I did line the bottom with cardboard before I filled it up. However, I do feel that this is largely unnecessary and I don't think it really serves a purpose.





Would you use screws rather than nails to construct these next time? I was surprised at how well the nails held up with the original two that I constructed and so I continued to use nails with the rest that I have built. The fact is, I suppose screws would hold better in the long run but that brings up the cost significantly since you need quite a lot of screws for each one. I used drywall nails that I had laying around for the first few and some roofing nails for the rest and they seem to hold up just fine.

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Music - "Epilogue" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/song/Epilogue

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Easiest Way to Take Apart a Pallet - Using Power Tools

Ready to get started on some free or cheap pallet projects? Once you have all of your pallets brought home get ready for some frustrating disassembly!

In this video I briefly discuss the method I have been using to take apart pallets to get useable wood. There are many other ways to do this very same thing but this has proved to be the quickest and easiest for me.

The first step is to just lay out the pallets on a flat surface and start making cuts on the inside of the outermost supports. Using a jig saw or circular say is best and you can quickly have those outside supports removed from the pallet. As with any pallet project, make sure you check for nails ahead of any cuts!

The next step is to use a Sawzall or reciprocating saw to free each slat from the middle support. I find this to the quickest way to get the most useable wood as long as you don't mind the nail head being left in the center of the board. Rock the slat back and forth to free up a small gap and slide the saw blade (metal cutting blade) between the slat and the support to cut the nails.

If you prefer to pull the center nails just slide in a pry bar to pop the slats off and then pound out and pull those center nails. Either way works just as well but I prefer to pull less nails!

Using this method you are left with a selection of 36"-39" slats that are ready to be used in any pallet project. Now if you are going to do more finishing on your final product like sanding or planning you obviously need to make sure to pull the center nails instead of cutting them with the Sawzall.

There are many other options out there such as pallet pullers and special pry bars. My suggestions is to take the money you would spend on that specialized tool and get yourself a good wonder bar or used Sawzall instead. These tools can be used for much more than just pallets and are a necessity for any homeowner.

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What is Square Foot Gardening? A Brief Overview

Our little homestead is located in a suburban subdivision in southeastern Michigan.  That basically means we have a short growing season and barely anywhere ideal to plant a conventional garden.  Most of our backyard is taken up by our pool and the septic field.  Sooooooo, raised beds it is.  But even better than that, square foot raised garden beds.  Why, you ask?  Here is some information that caught our attention and sold us on the idea to be square foot farmers.


Square Foot Gardening is very intensive.  You can plant more veggies in a smaller space than in a conventional garden.  There is also little weeding (yay!) and because the special soil mixure retains water extremely well, we have less of a chance of killing our plants (we need all the help we can get).


Here are the key elements to square foot gardening:


1.  Raised Beds:  Garden box frames should be no wider than 4 feet x any length, and 6 to 8 inches deep.  We opted for 3 x 6 raised beds.  Todd built ours using free pallet wood, click here to learn more about that process. 

2.  Special Soil Mixture (Mel's Mix): 

1/3 coarse vermiculite
1/3 peat moss
1/3 blended compost  (your backyard compost pile is the best option for blended compost, otherwise, you have to obtain several different forms of compost)


3.  The Grid

1 foot by 1 foot grid and must be permanent.  On top of each frame place a permanent grid that divides the box into one foot squares. The grid is the unique feature that makes the whole system work so well.

4:  Plant Spacing:  Depending on the mature size of the plant, grow 1, 4, 9, or 16 equally spaced plants per square foot. Choose fruits and veggies that make sense for your family and for the intensive planting style of the Square Foot Garden.

Here is a great resource for knowing how many plants to plant per square.  Numbers will vary slightly depending on which website you use.
http://plantandplate.com/p-downloads/PlantandPlate-SFG-planner.pdf


TIPS

Here are a few tips that really helped me when planning and planting our gardens:

1.  Plan out your garden first on paper.  I planned out our two beds on this piece of paper. 

This helped me determine how many seeds to buy and start indoors.  Which leads me to the next tip,

2.  Start your seeds indoors, especially if you have a short growing season.  We also got a great jump-start on our tomato plants by using the cloned clippings from the plants in our aquaponics beds.  We started out with plants almost two feet tall!  Learn all about that easy process here.  Best way to start tomatoes in my opinion!


3.  Plant the tallest plants on the north side of your square foot garden beds, especially the veggies that need trellises or supports to grow.  This helps the shorter plants get all the sun they can. 


4.  And here is the most important tip, the tip I read and forgot about, and did not follow.  So please don't be like me.  Water your soil BEFORE you plant your seeds!  I know that's a good idea in any garden, but this soil mixture is the thirstiest, spongiest soil you could ever hope for.  It took me FOREVER to water after I planted, especially since I didn't want to wash away the fragile plants I had just planted.


Learn more and meet the inventor of the Square Foot Gardening method: 
http://www.melbartholomew.com/what-is-square-foot-gardening/






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