My wife has had a successful year transforming the front yard with flowers and a few trees. She has offered this year to grow vegetables, stuff we can pickle or can for fun. I thought about cedar pickets from Home Depot, but after pricing things out I decided free wood was more satisfying.
I've been running around a bit with the trailer the past month, last Saturday on a dead head return trip I picked up as many pallets as I could haul. Pallets turn out to be a great resource for garden boxes, as they already have wall boards, and plenty of 2x4s to brace everything.
During the week I broke them down, and de-nailed. I nearly filled a small parts container with nails. It took maybe a few hours of de-nailing with a framing hammer and nipper but spread over the week it wasnt bad.
Today was the perfect rainy and cold day to fire up the small diesel heater for the garage and get to work. Using the 2x4 as vertical supports, tacked the walls together with a brad nailer, drilled pilot holes, then finished with 2 inch deck screws. I played around with a planer but decided to skip it. It makes beautiful wood out of pallet wood, but what a mess.
Initially I thought working with disparate wood pieces would be challenging, but it was the opposite and kind of fun. If I couldn't span the full length, simply add more vertical 2x4 support braces and paste things together.
Ended up making two 6 x 3.5 foot boxes and that's enough for today.
I need to make probably 2-3 more boxes, lightly sand the outside to remove any splinters, then treat with linseed oil, then finally put into place and fill them up with dirt. The wife has ambitions of irrigating it all with pvc or vinyl tubing and emitters. fun.
I've been running around a bit with the trailer the past month, last Saturday on a dead head return trip I picked up as many pallets as I could haul. Pallets turn out to be a great resource for garden boxes, as they already have wall boards, and plenty of 2x4s to brace everything.
During the week I broke them down, and de-nailed. I nearly filled a small parts container with nails. It took maybe a few hours of de-nailing with a framing hammer and nipper but spread over the week it wasnt bad.
Today was the perfect rainy and cold day to fire up the small diesel heater for the garage and get to work. Using the 2x4 as vertical supports, tacked the walls together with a brad nailer, drilled pilot holes, then finished with 2 inch deck screws. I played around with a planer but decided to skip it. It makes beautiful wood out of pallet wood, but what a mess.
Initially I thought working with disparate wood pieces would be challenging, but it was the opposite and kind of fun. If I couldn't span the full length, simply add more vertical 2x4 support braces and paste things together.
Ended up making two 6 x 3.5 foot boxes and that's enough for today.
I need to make probably 2-3 more boxes, lightly sand the outside to remove any splinters, then treat with linseed oil, then finally put into place and fill them up with dirt. The wife has ambitions of irrigating it all with pvc or vinyl tubing and emitters. fun.
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