Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

Pallet Wood Cargo Box for Riding Mower

A few weeks ago, I ordered a Hi Hitch for my riding mowers...

What is so nice about this product is that I can use the lower hitch for my normal garden carts and other riding mower accessories, but the hi hitch now allows me to put on a trailer hitch ball and move my empty boat and auto utility trailers. I installed it on one of my riding mowers and tested it out. It works really well. I am very happy with that purchase, especially, a few years ago they were selling for about $60.00, now less than $27.00!

Having said that, I won't normally be using the hi hitch for moving my empty trailers around. I mean, I moved them to their storage location, and they probably won't move again until next spring.

But I got to thinking, I wonder if I put a crate on that hi hitch and use it as a mount for a mini cargo box?

Today, I built a cargo box that installs on my hi hitch and is fastened my just one bolt, allowing me to easily remove the crate if/when I need to put on a hitch ball to move my trailers.

Here is a picture of the backside of my mower with the hi hitch installed...

I built a pallet wood crate to fit on top of the hi hitch. The crate is 12X24 inches, which is just about all the bigger I could make it because I did not want the cargo box sticking out wider than my mower.

Here is a picture of the pallet wood crate installed on the hi hitch...

In order to secure it to the hi hitch, I used a bolt, washer, and wingnut through the crate and underneath the top ball hitch hole. I went with the wingnut because @fuzzi suggested I use a wingnut on a different project, and I ended up buying an assortment kit of 150 wingnuts from Harbor Freight. The wingnut works well here because it will allow me to remove the bolt and the crate out in the field without the need for any other tools.

Here is a picture of the one bolt that is holding the crate in place on the hi hitch...

Although the crate stayed in place with just that one bolt, the mounted crate itself had a little flex from side to side. Not a problem if the box was loaded in the center, but I decided to add a support board underneath the box which made it a lot stronger and still will not negatively affect the function of using a trailer hitch ball if/when I remove the crate.

I have in mind to use that cargo box to hold my smaller pruning chainsaws, batteries and oil...

The idea for this cargo box on the riding mower came up this past week. We had a big windstorm a week ago and there were branches down on the ground all over my property. I was hitching up my cart, putting the saws and everything in the cart, but then I was burying everything in the cart when I filled it up with wood. I thought to myself, it sure would be nice to have a separate cargo box for my stuff so I don't have to pile the wood on top of the batteries, oil, etc...

The pallet wood crate is big enough to hold my pruning saws and accessories, but not big enough to hold my full sized chainsaws. That's OK, most of the cleanup work I do only requires my smaller pruning saws. If I need the bigger chainsaws, I'll have to transport them in the pull behind wagons. I will still be able to keep the batteries and bar oil in the new pallet wood cargo crate.

Here is a picture of the rig ready to roll...

I am really happy with my efforts on this project. I plan on leaving the pallet wood crate unpainted, but I could easily get some red or black paint to match the riding mower and paint the wood. That would look nice, too.

I used all pallet wood for this project. I also used reclaimed pallet wood nails and rusty screws I removed from another project. The bolt, washer, wingnut and about a dozen new drywall screws probably cost me about 25 cents in total. It was a fun project to build, and I think I will be using that cargo box a lot.

 

[gtaus]

Upgrade Modification to Pallet Wood Cargo Crate Mower Storage

Only had the storage crate on my lawn mower for one day, but already have been getting ideas for upgrades.

One of my must have tools for yard cleanup is my reacher or grabber tool to pick up sticks and branches off the ground so I don't have to constantly bend over all the time. Of course, I could just toss it into the new pallet wood cargo crate on my riding mower but I thought of a way to mount it on the outside of the box instead. Take a look...

I found a couple bent up and twisted conduit clamps in a junk jar. Before I could use them, I had to straighten them out and bend them back to almost their original shape. Close enough for my needs, anyways. Here is what new conduit clamps look like...

My idea was to just a screw in the lower part of the clamp and leave the top part of the clamp free. That way, it would act almost like a spring clamp when I put the reacher/grabber shaft into the conduit clamp. Turns out, it works pretty well. Here are some close-up pics of the install...

At first I was going to install the clamps for the grabber on the backside of the pallet wood crate, but after thinking more about it, I mounted it on the front of the crate. It is right behind the mower seat. That way, if I am riding the mower, I can reach behind me and take out the grabber to pick up a pop can or some other garbage that might be tossed along the road and not have to get up and off the mower.

I know some of you might be thinking that I'm too lazy to get off the mower to pick up trash. Well, that might be partly true.

However, my idea was that if I just reach behind me to take off the grabber, I could pick up the trash with the reacher while sitting in the seat and not have to shut down the mower. That saves me time and effort. That mower is small enough and the reacher is long enough for me to pull alongside a pop can or beer bottle and pick it up with the grabber. And now I have that pallet wood crate behind the seat to put the trash in until I get back to the garage.

Future modifications may include an external mounted pop can holder and a cell phone holder.

 

[gtaus]

Small Partial Pallets Have Lots Of Uses

Most of the time I only pick up standard sized pallets. However, every once in a while, I find an extra-large or long pallet or a really small one. I like to pick up those non-standard sized pallets. You never know when you might find a use for one.

Today, I had a need for a small pallet. Problem was that I had a big pan of water out in my chicken run as supplemental water due to the summer heat but the chickens were constantly scratching grass clippings into it. A fresh pan of water looks terrible by the end of day.

Here is an example of what the water pan looks like after only a day or two in the chicken run...

Well, I don't know if you can see all the grass clippings in that water, but it looks more like compost tea than a watering pan in real life.

My idea was to get that dish up and off the ground. I found a small 24X24 inch pallet in my stack of partial pallets and put it in the run to use as the base for the water pan...

Then I put the feeder pan on it and filled it with water. Now the chickens will have to scratch up those grass clippings about 8 inches off the ground before they can get into the water.

That looked pretty good to me, so I washed out the pan and filled it with water.

I am happy to report that at the end of the day when I locked up my hens in the coop for the night, the water was clear and free of any grass clippings.

 

[gtaus]

Pallet Wood Compost Bin in Chicken Run

The first summer I had my backyard flock, I thought it would be a good idea to have a compost bin inside the chicken run. I took three full-sized pallets for the sides and the back and cut a fourth pallet in half using one half for the front and the other half to put on top of the compost bin. The idea was the chickens could easily jump into the compost bins to eat the kitchen scraps and leftovers I intended to put into the bin.

Here is a picture of that original compost bin setup today...

If you look closely, that front half pallet is about 22 inches high. I converted my entire chicken run into a chicken run composting system. My compost litter is about 18 inches high judging by only a small portion of the front pallet is above the litter.

I no longer use that compost bin for composting. However, the chickens love to sit and perch on the top pallet cover or on the top of the sides. On a hot day like today, they like to sit in the shade inside the bin underneath that top. It still makes for good chicken furniture, and they use it all the time. So, I just left the compost bin inside the run although it serves a different function than I had planned.

I have been dumping in bins full of grass clippings into the run this week. You can see the chickens have leveled out those piles of grass clippings in no time. All those grass clippings are mixed with the leaves underneath from last fall and it makes excellent black gold compost for my raised bed gardens.

Even though I don't use my compost bin inside the chicken run for composting, it was still one of my better ideas if I had not converted my entire run into a composting system. For a while, I would dump my kitchen scraps and leftovers into that compost bin and the chickens would dive in there and feast. It would have made an excellent composting bin by itself for someone who wants to confine their composting effort into just the bin and not the whole chicken run.

 

[Sally PB]

I am happy to report that at the end of the day when I locked up my hens in the coop for the night, the water was clear and free of any grass clippings.

I have the chickens' water bowl up on a cinder block to achieve the same result. It's in the "food and water shelter" so it's protected on the back and they can't access it from the left.

Before I had it on the block, they scratched a lot of dirt into it from the front. Now it stays clean.

 

[gtaus]

I have the chickens' water bowl up on a cinder block to achieve the same result. It's in the "food and water shelter" so it's protected on the back and they can't access it from the left.

Before I had it on the block, they scratched a lot of dirt into it from the front. Now it stays clean.

Good idea to use a cinder block. My feeder pan is about 16- or 18-inches round, so it would have taken two cinder blocks at a minimum. I guess a person should just use what they have. In my case, I had some small pallets in my storage pile looking for a useful purpose in life.

So far, I am very happy to have a clean watering pan at the end of the day. My main metal fount waterer is inside the coop, and that stays pretty clean all the time, but I wanted to offer some additional water outside in the run during the summer heat. Cleaning and refilling the outside water pan every day, or every other day at best, was getting to be a real pain.

Not that I want to complain, because I really like the fact that my chickens are scratching and pecking in the chicken run litter turning that stuff into black gold compost for my raised beds. I just needed to get that water pan higher.

 

[gtaus]

Make Your Boards Longer!

I came across a YouTube video on how to take some 4-foot-long pallet wood 2X4 stretchers and turn them into longer boards using lap joints. Sometimes, I need a 2X4 that is longer than the standard pallet wood 4 foot.

This video shows you one simple way using basic lap joints to make your boards longer. He is using the longer boards for a pallet wood fence.

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What I liked about his solution was that it is very easy. it's just a very simple lap joint but strong enough to be useful in many projects.

In theory, wood glue is stronger than the actual wood, so the lap joint in that video should be pretty strong. Having said that, I don't think I would use a spliced board from pallet wood to use as my roof. But for a fence or other non-critical applications, I think these spliced boards would work just fine.

I have watched more advanced videos of Japanese methods of using inter-locking notches in wood which would probably result in a much stronger joint, but I'm not at that level of artisanship. So, I tend to focus on what I can actually do.

 

[fuzzi]

Here's a possible pallet project!

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/yards/21016720/how-to-build-a-rain-barrel

 

[gtaus]

Here's a possible pallet project!

https://www.thisoldhouse.com/yards/21016720/how-to-build-a-rain-barrel

That's a very nice-looking rain barrel project. Very easy to make it with pallet wood if you want. Thanks.

I used a similar concept of building an elevated pallet wood planter stand in which I could put an industrial 27-gallon plastic tote...

I had designed the plastic tote to make it a sub-irrigated planter. Previously, I had built elevated planters and used pond liners in them to hold the water for the sub-irrigated method. They work, but I am sure the pond liner was more expensive than the plastic totes I bought. So, my idea was to save some money using the plastic totes with the added benefit of being able to remove and/or swap out different totes for growing maybe an early year plant and then later in summer using a different tote with a late summer plant.

I like the look of wood over the look of a black plastic tote, so the main concept was to dress up the looks of the planter. Well, the elevated idea was to make it easier to work and maintain. I'm getting old. But you could certainly just use the industrial totes as planters on the deck without building any stand.

I had intended to put this pallet wood planter stand on our deck. Unfortunately, Dear Wife vetoed that idea because she said it would take up too much room given, she already has a lot of planters and pots set up for her stuff. I was hoping that she would use the new planter stand and remove some of her old regular planters and pots. But no.

That pallet wood elevated planter is just sitting out in my backyard, unused, looking for a place to live. I thought it was one of my better ideas. It still may be. But it is looking for its purpose in life at this time. I set it out alongside my pallet wood raised beds, but it just looks out of place because of the different size, shape and design.

 

[gtaus]

Trellis Update on Pallet Wood Raised Bed

This spring, I decided to add another pallet wood/salvaged wood trellis to one of my raised beds. I found some salvaged 8-foot 2X4's and built the upright frame with them...

I had a nice section of leftover 2X4 inch fencing which I added to one side, thinking someday I might want to plant a climbing plant like cucumbers.

But my intent for this year was plant indeterminant tomatoes in this bed and use the rope method with tomato clips to train them up the line. From what I read; I could put about 9 tomato plants in a 4X4 foot bed. Here is a close up of the cross three supports I added to the frame to hang my ropes...

I planted some cherry and early girl tomato plants in that bed, dropped down a rope, and used tomato/plant clips to train them up the rope as they grew.

Here is an updated picture of that bed from last week, with the plants reaching almost 7 feet tall...

Looking at that picture, it might look a little thin. It looks better in real life, fuller. But I did prune all the suckers on those plants as they grew and that really opened up the space between the plants. I heard that was a good thing for disease prevention. In theory, the tomatoes are supposed to be healthier.

Well, I am debating whether or not pruning the suckers was a good idea. Yes, my plants are healthy, and my tomatoes are doing well. I have been harvesting a few ripe tomatoes every other day for a couple weeks from that bed. However, last year when I did not prune my plants, I had maybe twice as many tomatoes this time of year.

I do have one raised bed of indeterminant tomatoes that I did not prune, and it looks like a massive green wall full of leaves and fruit. Almost like a jungle it is so thick. There are lots of tomatoes on those plants, but none of them have ripened yet. I don't know if it is because the leaves are so thick or if allowing the suckers to grow is slowing down the maturation of the tomatoes on those plants.

I need to study the effects of pruning off the suckers more for next year's crops.

At any rate, I have decided to add more trellises like this one to some of my other raised beds. They do not interfere with me in maintaining the raised beds. They give me more options for things to plant in there, like adding some more wire fencing for climbing plants or dropping down ropes for tomatoes.

I have some raised bed with determinant Roma tomatoes, which I used standard wire tomato cages on them. Unfortunately, we had a bad windstorm and half of the plants in those cages tipped over. Because they are full of fruit, I cannot get them back upright. Part of that is because the tomato cages are not tall enough for the plants, but also part is due to the fact that I use the hügelkultur method in my raised beds and I can only shove the tomato cages down about 6 to 8 inches into the topsoil before I hit the logs underneath. That 6 inches into the soil for the cage is not deep enough to withstand a heavy wind.

I am thinking that if I add a trellis frame to more beds, that I could run some 2X2's from post to post and make solid wood cages for the tomatoes. Probably make them as inserts that could be screwed into those trellis posts and removable if I don't want them. For example, I could have some frames for 4 or 9 plants depending on what I want to grow in that bed. It's just a thought at this point, but I really want to get away from those old wire tomato cages that just don't work well for me. Probably a future pallet wood project once I work out what I want...