Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[Smokerbill]

Pallet Wood Chicken Run Grazing Frame Update

A few weeks ago, I started upgrading my grazing frame in the chicken run. Basically, I built a 4-inch-high frame out of salavaged beams I got in my pallet pickups. I put that under my existing frame to raise it up another 4 inches higher. The old grazing frame was not high enough to prevent the chickens from scratching everything on top of the grazing frame wire last summer, blocking out the sun, and nothing grew inside the grazing frame.

To bring everything up to date, here is the new riser frame I built out of salvaged composite 3X4 beams I got on a pallet pickup...

View attachment 3524225

After putting it together, I put it down on the dirt in the chicken run, then reseeded it with some new grass seed...

View attachment 3524229

Then I put the original grazing frame on the riser frame I just built....

View attachment 3524230

Now, it's about 3 weeks later. I was out planting some peppers and eggplants in one of my pallet wood raised beds and noticed that I had some chickens eating grass over on the grazing frame! Success!

I had my phone with me, so I went over the chicken run to snap a few photos. Of course, by the time I got there, only one chicken was left on the grazing frame, but still, here is an updated photo for you...

View attachment 3524239

Notice how the grass inside the grazing frame is filling in nicely. Also, there is a little bit of debris scratched on top of the wire, but not very much. Last year, it was completely covered and totally blocked out the sun.

Here's a close up of one section of the grazing frame...

View attachment 3524241

The chickens will eat any grass that gets tall enough to poke up through the wire, but they cannot pull the grass out by the roots so the grass will continue to grow all summer long. It's a nice way to provide some fresh grass to the chickens without letting them totally dig up and kill everything. You can see that the chickens have "mowed" the grass down to the wire, just like it was meant to be. Of course, they dug up and killed everything else in the chicken run. But the grazing frame is a small patch of living grass.

I put grass seed in my grazing frame, but I suppose a person could put anything like, wheat, barley, or oats, etc... and grow that in the frame as well.

I've seen where some people add a second, taller screened structure over 1/2 of the grazing frame. They let half of it grow tall, then move the half size frame over to the already grazed side. That way the chickens get access to taller grass every so often instead of just fighting for little nibbles all the time.

 

[gtaus]

I've seen where some people add a second, taller screened structure over 1/2 of the grazing frame. They let half of it grow tall, then move the half size frame over to the already grazed side. That way the chickens get access to taller grass every so often instead of just fighting for little nibbles all the time.

That sounds like an interesting idea. I converted my entire chicken run into a chicken run composting system, so no grass can grow except for where I put my grazing frame. All other areas are covered with leaves and grass clippings, for the most part. Oh well, it's better than bare dirt that turned into mud after a rain. My beautiful grass chicken run only lasted a few months in one summer about 3 years ago, and then the chickens had everything scratched up down to bare dirt.

I have seen some chicken runs that are mostly bare earth, and they will plant some grass, move a grazing frame over it, and then rotate it to a different spot after a few weeks. It works better with 2 or more smaller grazing frames that are easy to move. My grazing frame is 3X10 feet and not so easy to move.

One option I did my first summer with the chicken run was to section off part of the run and let the grass grow tall, then open up that section and let the chickens in for a number of days, but not long enough to totally pull up everything and scratch it down to bare earth. That worked OK, but I eventually decided to open up the entire area and just convert the chicken run into a composting system. That ended up working better for me.

 

[gtaus]

I was out in the main garden this morning planting some Roma tomatoes in one of my earliest raised beds built from using fence panels. Basically, I had a number of 4-foot-high wood fence panels that were not being used for anything, so I cut them in half down to 2 feet high and made these raised beds about 5+ years ago.

Now, I have mentioned that using framing on the outside of my pallet wood raised beds is a much sturdier design than having the framing on the inside. All my new pallet wood raised beds have the 2x4 framing on the outside for increased strength. What I am going to show you with the following pictures is what time and outward pressure can do to raised beds if you don't have the framing on the outside, like I did years ago when I built the raised beds with the fence panels.

First of all, let's look at a blowout. Here is what time and constant outward pressure can do to your raised bed without framing on the outside...

That corner gave out because the wood inside the corner piece softened up and the screws holding that corner came out due to the constant outward pressure of the soil inside the raised bed. Mind you, this raised bed is just over 5 years old, and I can't complain too much about how long it has held up, but I think if I would have used framing on the outside of the build it would have lasted longer.

When I fix this problem, I think I'll just use some salvaged 2X4 wood and build a frame for the outside. The bed is 4X8 feet, so I need to use some of my longer salvaged wood or long pallet 2X4 to rebuild this raised bed.

In addition to the corner blowout, you might start to see sidewall pieces blow outs for the same reasons. This fencing panel that I cut in half does not have any sidewall pieces blown out - yet - but a few have rotted and will need to be replaced.

Another issue that I learned from building these first 4X8 beds is that you can get significant bow out in the middle of the 8 foot side. Here are some pictures of how, over the years, the sides of one of the raised beds is starting to fail...

I put a straight rake handle in this next picture to give you a better idea of how much the sidewall is bowing out. The only way I know how to fix this problem is to rebuild the raised bed and add some cross support pieces at the half-way 4 foot mark.

Well, lessons learned on all of these early attempts at making raised beds. I think my new designs using pallet wood and having the 2X4 framing on the outside has been a better idea to prevent blowouts and keeping each raised bed to 4X4 feet should eliminate the bowing out problem with the longer 8-foot sidewall.

Having said that, these fence panel raised beds are 5+ years old and my newer 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds are only a couple of years old. So, time will tell if my newer designs with 2X4 framing on the outside will hold up better. I think they will.

Picture of my newest pallet wood raised bed design with framing on the outside, for comparison....

If you have any thoughts or experience in your raised bed builds, I would love to hear your comments. I hope to learn from my mistakes, but it is always better to learn from others mistakes and not make the same ones. In that light, I offered my experience from building raised beds and I hope others will not make the same mistakes I made.

 

[gtaus]

Pallet Wood Repair of Bench Swing

We had an older bench swing given to us a few years ago. It was in bad shape at the time. I fixed it up with pallet wood I salvaged and replaced the boards that were broken and rotted out.

Here is a picture of the repaired bench swing I fixed for Dear Wife. She has it underneath a nice shade tree out in the front yard. She likes to sit there and relax a bit, looking at her flower gardens.

Can you see the pallet wood I used to repair this swing? I doubt it! Even if you were here with me, you would be very hard pressed to tell what was original wood and what was replaced. In fact, when I repaired the swing bench, I used heavier wood and made it even stronger.

 

[ChicksnMore]

I was out in the main garden this morning planting some Roma tomatoes in one of my earliest raised beds built from using fence panels. Basically, I had a number of 4-foot-high wood fence panels that were not being used for anything, so I cut them in half down to 2 feet high and made these raised beds about 5+ years ago.

Now, I have mentioned that using framing on the outside of my pallet wood raised beds is a much sturdier design than having the framing on the inside. All my new pallet wood raised beds have the 2x4 framing on the outside for increased strength. What I am going to show you with the following pictures is what time and outward pressure can do to raised beds if you don't have the framing on the outside, like I did years ago when I built the raised beds with the fence panels.

First of all, let's look at a blowout. Here is what time and constant outward pressure can do to your raised bed without framing on the outside...

View attachment 3525839

That corner gave out because the wood inside the corner piece softened up and the screws holding that corner came out due to the constant outward pressure of the soil inside the raised bed. Mind you, this raised bed is just over 5 years old, and I can't complain too much about how long it has held up, but I think if I would have used framing on the outside of the build it would have lasted longer.

When I fix this problem, I think I'll just use some salvaged 2X4 wood and build a frame for the outside. The bed is 4X8 feet, so I need to use some of my longer salvaged wood or long pallet 2X4 to rebuild this raised bed.

In addition to the corner blowout, you might start to see sidewall pieces blow outs for the same reasons. This fencing panel that I cut in half does not have any sidewall pieces blown out - yet - but a few have rotted and will need to be replaced.

Another issue that I learned from building these first 4X8 beds is that you can get significant bow out in the middle of the 8 foot side. Here are some pictures of how, over the years, the sides of one of the raised beds is starting to fail...

View attachment 3525813

I put a straight rake handle in this next picture to give you a better idea of how much the sidewall is bowing out. The only way I know how to fix this problem is to rebuild the raised bed and add some cross support pieces at the half-way 4 foot mark.

View attachment 3525814

Well, lessons learned on all of these early attempts at making raised beds. I think my new designs using pallet wood and having the 2X4 framing on the outside has been a better idea to prevent blowouts and keeping each raised bed to 4X4 feet should eliminate the bowing out problem with the longer 8-foot sidewall.

Having said that, these fence panel raised beds are 5+ years old and my newer 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds are only a couple of years old. So, time will tell if my newer designs with 2X4 framing on the outside will hold up better. I think they will.

Picture of my newest pallet wood raised bed design with framing on the outside, for comparison....

View attachment 3525817

If you have any thoughts or experience in your raised bed builds, I would love to hear your comments. I hope to learn from my mistakes, but it is always better to learn from others mistakes and not make the same ones. In that light, I offered my experience from building raised beds and I hope others will not make the same mistakes I made.

I love your pallet wood raised beds.

I've had the same experience as you on side blow outs on raised beds. I have one reused fence panel bed here. It's a keyhole garden made from old fencing and hwc. I was originally going to do two layers of hwc with gravel dropped down between them, but then the free fence boards came along and I changed to that. Just so much easier. I still wanted a round bed for my keyhole so I used the hwc as an outward pressure support. There's no nails or screws anywhere in this...it holds together just from that outward pressure. I can't remember how old this is. Less then ten years, more then five. No repairs have been needed though. Just refresh the dirt from the center compost bin.

I added the edging just to cover the edge of hardware cloth to be sure it never catches my clothes. Not sure it was needed as the boards are a little higher then the hwc.

The keyhole area I added metal braces pounded into the ground to hold it in place. And the center compost bin is two stacked rings of hwc just inside that braced wood section. With two rings, I can stack the compost high and just remove the top ring when emptying it.

I originally filled the bottom half with old wood and it grew everything like crazy. At this point the old wood base layer has rotted away and it's been topped up with compost for years. In spite of the constant compost addition, the soils getting a little spent and needs more enrichment. It also drains too well for our area now...that wood layer at the bottom really made a huge difference in water retention and like I said...it's gone. Think I need to mix in some clay to fix the too fast drainage and some chicken for nutrients. What id really like to do is almost empty it, add a fresh wood layer and retop...maybe this year. Gardening seasons about over here... everythings setting seed for me right now.

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

An outdoor working table, multifunctional

I made a holder with a Y-shape branch so I can easily wash/rinse the harvest.

And then, I added a small foldable table.

The water is recycled for other plants nearby.

Not a complicated or precise one - but it met our requirements.

 

[Hedgeland Farms]

An outdoor working table, multifunctional
View attachment 3527619

I made a holder with a Y-shape branch so I can easily wash/rinse the harvest.
View attachment 3527620

And then, I added a small foldable table.
View attachment 3527623
The water is recycled for other plants nearby.
View attachment 3527624

Not a complicated or precise one - but it met our requirements.

Love this!

 

[gtaus]

I love your pallet wood raised beds.

Thanks. Dear Wife likes them, too. Which is great, because our local Fleet store just got a shipment of $$$ half whiskey barrels and I asked her if she wanted any new $$$ half barrels. Our old barrels are ~30 years old and I had to replace/repair them over the years, making one barrel out parts of two barrels.

But Dear Wife is fine with the free pallet wood planters I built for her.

that wood layer at the bottom really made a huge difference in water retention and like I said...it's gone.

Yep, the wood acts like a giant sponge. I use ~8-inch round tree trunk logs in the bottom of my raised beds. Those chunks of wood should last many years - maybe 10 years, or more? I don't know for sure. Anyways, I also put in smaller branches and wood chips to fill the gaps, and I'm sure they probably compost down in a few years.

A few summers ago, we had a terrible drought with no rain. All my raised beds in the main garden dried up and everything died, except for the hügelkultur raised beds. The plants continued to live and grow in the hügelkultur raised beds until they bore fruit in late summer. Not a bumper crop that year, but compared to the rest of the garden, it was a minor miracle.

Think I need to mix in some clay to fix the too fast drainage and some chicken for nutrients. What id really like to do is almost empty it, add a fresh wood layer and retop...maybe this year.

My plan is to use my chicken run compost which should be good for trapping water and slowing down drainage on the top layers of my hügelkultur raised beds. What drains down from all that compost might still get soaked up by the wood in the base.

 

[gtaus]

An outdoor working table, multifunctional

Very nice job. Love all the extra addon's that you made. Thanks for sharing and uploading the pictures to show what you did.

 

[Smokerbill]

I finally started putting up a pallet fence. The posts and runners are just some weird, lightweight pallets. I'm just attaching the pickets with two nails, so the panel can flex when I put it in to keep them plumb on a sloped surface. That's the theory, anyway. I can pound/drive more fasteners later when I'm satisfied it will work.

I'm transition to longer pickets for the next section of fence. I ran out of the 24 inchers. Now I have 29 inchers to work with.

There will be a few strands of electric fence wire above the wood. I believe the chickens will see them and it will keep them from trying to fly over. Deer protection, too.