Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[Tiffany Wikk]

For many of us on this thread, reusing stuff is part of our nature. There is a new thread on the BYC forum called DIY Uses of Scrap Hardware Cloth started by @Tiffany Wikk. I think you might enjoy looking at some of the ideas presented in that thread.

Here is a picture of some hügelkultur pallet wood raised beds @Tiffany Wikk built about 3 years ago. Very nice job. Check out that thread if it sounds interesting to you and drop some comments. I have been enjoying the discussion over there...

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Wow! What an honor!
I'm very pleased that you are enjoying the thread. I am too! It's been wonderful to chat and hear about your amazing ideas! You have some incredible ones. I'm very thankful for what you have shared with your experience.

In another thread, created by my sister (@Elspeth Dinsmore), you had shared that you had "junk trees" that were box elders. We very much liked your idea! It sounds wonderful to have fun plants for the chickens to crawl under and receive shade. My mom had found arborvitae trees on sale at the store shortly after. In my hardware cloth thread I have the post about the "Tree Covers" we made to protect these trees while they are young. It was your idea about your "junk trees" that made us want our own trees for our chickens. You have wonderful ideas! Thank you so much for sharing all of your incredible projects!

-Our raised garden beds-

It was a lot of work to build our raised beds. I couldn't have done it without my family! It was absolutely a team effort!

We had been clearing off an old concrete slab at the edge of our property (that we later used for the base of our chicken coop and run) and had tons of yard debris to find a place for. My mom had discovered the concept of hügelkultur. It was just so wonderful to place all the yard debris right into the new garden beds. Here's a collage Elspeth made of the steps we took for the inside of the beds.

As I had mentioned in my thread, we used a "deck wrecker" to take apart the pallets. Some pallets are easy to peal apart and other seemed to never want to come apart. With the deck wrecker it made it so much easier for all sorts of pallets.

Here's a couple photos my sister just took of the garden so far this year.

 

[gtaus]

In another thread, created by my sister (@Elspeth Dinsmore), you had shared that you had "junk trees" that were box elders. We very much liked your idea! It sounds wonderful to have fun plants for the chickens to crawl under and receive shade.

Yep, those box elder trees just grew wild in my chicken run so I let them grow out for shade. I have to trim them down to about 6 feet high due to my bird netting stretched across the chicken run fencing. Obviously, your trees will look much better all trimmed up and such. But I am OK with my "mini-forest" for the chickens to chill out in on those hot, sunny days.

Picture of the section of my chicken run with the free range box elder trees growing in my chicken run...

We had been clearing off an old concrete slab at the edge of our property (that we later used for the base of our chicken coop and run) and had tons of yard debris to find a place for. My mom had discovered the concept of hügelkultur. It was just so wonderful to place all the yard debris right into the new garden beds. Here's a collage Elspeth made of the steps we took for the inside of the beds.

Thanks for all those great pictures. I got turned on to the hügelkultur method of filling my pallet wood raised beds a number of years ago. Since then, nothing organic leaves my property. I can use just about everything, and anything, organic in those hügelkultur beds. I can't believe years ago we used to bag up all our yard debris and drive 20 miles round trip to dump it at our local landfill!

I converted my entire chicken run into a chicken run composting system. I use the chicken run compost mixed with topsoil for my top 6-8 inches in my hügelkultur pallet wood raised beds. If you have chickens, that is a great way to recycle all that run and coop litter, too. Just let it compost out in the run and harvest it a couple times a year. Since I got my chickens, I have not had to buy any cow manure in bags at the big box stores.

As I had mentioned in my thread, we used a "deck wrecker" to take apart the pallets. Some pallets are easy to peal apart and other seemed to never want to come apart. With the deck wrecker it made it so much easier for all sorts of pallets.

I have a pallet buster as well. I made my own. Here is a picture of my DIY pallet buster with a pallet wood planter I built a few years ago...

I have mixed feelings about using my pallet buster. It breaks a lot of boards on the pallets I get. It's the perfect tool for the right pallet, but most of the pallets I seem to find are the wrong kind of pallets to use the pallet buster on.

My main method of taking apart pallets is to use a circular saw and cut off the planks from the 2X4 stretchers. For me, and what I use the wood for, I am able to salvage more useable wood that way. Mostly, I only need 16-inch-long plank pieces to make my pallet wood raised beds.

Having said that, if I find that right pallet, then the pallet buster is my tool of choice to save the full-length planks. Most of the time I can just look at a pallet and I know if I should use the pallet buster or my circular saw to save the most amount of wood. It's good to have a number of different options.

 

[Tiffany Wikk]

Yep, those box elder trees just grew wild in my chicken run so I let them grow out for shade. I have to trim them down to about 6 feet high due to my bird netting stretched across the chicken run fencing. Obviously, your trees will look much better all trimmed up and such. But I am OK with my "mini-forest" for the chickens to chill out in on those hot, sunny days.

Picture of the section of my chicken run with the free range box elder trees growing in my chicken run...

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I'm sure your chickens love your "mini forest". Looks so fun for them! Such a smart idea. I'm so excited for ours to grow big enough for the chickens to sit under!

Thanks for all those great pictures. I got turned on to the hügelkultur method of filling my pallet wood raised beds a number of years ago. Since then, nothing organic leaves my property. I can use just about everything, and anything, organic in those hügelkultur beds. I can't believe years ago we used to bag up all our yard debris and drive 20 miles round trip to dump it at our local landfill!

I converted my entire chicken run into a chicken run composting system. I use the chicken run compost mixed with topsoil for my top 6-8 inches in my hügelkultur pallet wood raised beds. If you have chickens, that is a great way to recycle all that run and coop litter, too. Just let it compost out in the run and harvest it a couple times a year. Since I got my chickens, I have not had to buy any cow manure in bags at the big box stores.

How wonderful! It can be so expensive to get rid of yard debris. It's unbelievable. I'm so glad we got to skip so many trips to the local dump and instead use it all for the garden. What a wonderful use of it all!

I have a pallet buster as well. I made my own. Here is a picture of my DIY pallet buster with a pallet wood planter I built a few years ago...

View attachment 3885505

I have mixed feelings about using my pallet buster. It breaks a lot of boards on the pallets I get. It's the perfect tool for the right pallet, but most of the pallets I seem to find are the wrong kind of pallets to use the pallet buster on.

My main method of taking apart pallets is to use a circular saw and cut off the planks from the 2X4 stretchers. For me, and what I use the wood for, I am able to salvage more useable wood that way. Mostly, I only need 16-inch-long plank pieces to make my pallet wood raised beds.

Having said that, if I find that right pallet, then the pallet buster is my tool of choice to save the full-length planks. Most of the time I can just look at a pallet and I know if I should use the pallet buster or my circular saw to save the most amount of wood. It's good to have a number of different options.

I totally get what you mean about the pallet buster. The pallets we tend to get are definitely not in the best shape, and vary substantially between each pallet. Some of them you could rip apart in a few moments and others seem to fight for their lives.

I used to work for hours with my dad using a crow bar and a hammer and unfortunately many of the planks just simply broke in the process. For us and our pallets, the deck wrecker was a game changer. It was so much easier and it kept many of them from breaking. The way we built our garden beds, we needed the long boards unfortunately. With what I know now, it would have been better to have the boards shorter and placed vertically. Our beds are a bit too tall and are hard to bend over and reach things with their specific height.

For what you have built it sounds like the smartest idea was to cut them with a saw like you have. If I ever build something again from pallets, I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Your beds look absolutely wonderful. If I where to repeat things I'd love to make beds like yours!

 

[gtaus]

The way we built our garden beds, we needed the long boards unfortunately.

All of what you said is true. I have learned that if I can redesign my pallet projects to use shorter boards, I can save more useable wood from my pallet demolitions in a shorter period of time using a circular saw.

For example, in a raised bed, I too first built them with long boards. But when I started using pallet wood, I quickly discovered that I had much better yield of useable wood if I could redesign my raised bed to use shorter pieces of planks. What I have come up, after a number of tries, is what I call my pallet wood raised bed v2.0 which uses the 4-foot pallet wood 2X4's uncut, and the side boards are pallet planks cut down to 16 inches high...

This latest design has proven to be a much better, stronger, build for me because the 2X4 framing is on the outside. That eliminates side wall blowouts I had from earlier raised beds with the support framing on the inside.

Although the raised bed is 16 inches high, because the 2X4 framing is on the outside, I can actually use plank pieces anywhere from 11-16 inches long because they are hidden behind the 2X4's. Believe it or not, that allowed me to use up a lot of shorter plank pieces I had accumulated from breaking down the pallets and some boards breaking or cracking at the ends.

My first raised beds where 4X8 feet because it was easier to buy 2X6's or 2X8's in 8-foot lengths. And I still have some of those older beds in use. But I have come to like the smaller 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds because I can get around them easier.

Of course, the best thing about my 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds is that it only costs me about $2.00, or less, for new screws and nails to make each bed. I use new screws and my nail gun to save time. If I reused my pulled pallet wood nails, I could probably build the entire raised bed for free, but it would just take me a bit longer.

 

[Elspeth Dinsmore]

All of what you said is true. I have learned that if I can redesign my pallet projects to use shorter boards, I can save more useable wood from my pallet demolitions in a shorter period of time using a circular saw.

For example, in a raised bed, I too first built them with long boards. But when I started using pallet wood, I quickly discovered that I had much better yield of useable wood if I could redesign my raised bed to use shorter pieces of planks. What I have come up, after a number of tries, is what I call my pallet wood raised bed v2.0 which uses the 4-foot pallet wood 2X4's uncut, and the side boards are pallet planks cut down to 16 inches high...

View attachment 3885609


This latest design has proven to be a much better, stronger, build for me because the 2X4 framing is on the outside. That eliminates side wall blowouts I had from earlier raised beds with the support framing on the inside.

Although the raised bed is 16 inches high, because the 2X4 framing is on the outside, I can actually use plank pieces anywhere from 11-16 inches long because they are hidden behind the 2X4's. Believe it or not, that allowed me to use up a lot of shorter plank pieces I had accumulated from breaking down the pallets and some boards breaking or cracking at the ends.

My first raised beds where 4X8 feet because it was easier to buy 2X6's or 2X8's in 8-foot lengths. And I still have some of those older beds in use. But I have come to like the smaller 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds because I can get around them easier.

Of course, the best thing about my 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds is that it only costs me about $2.00, or less, for new screws and nails to make each bed. I use new screws and nails to save time. If I reused my pulled pallet wood nails, I could probably build the entire raised bed for free, but it would just take me a bit longer.

That bed looks phenomenal!
I was just telling my family about how I really love the photos I have seen of your garden beds!
Our beds do have issues with buckling under the weight they are holding. We needed to re-enforce several areas.
They also ended up being a difficult height to reach into, unfortunately. I can't easily bend without my knees hitting the top boards of the bed. I pop them out on accident when I lean against them.
If we could redo our beds, I would want ours to be like yours.
It is super smart to design your building plans around the size of the boards you are most easily able to get.
Thanks for sharing! They are beautifully done.

 

[Tiffany Wikk]

All of what you said is true. I have learned that if I can redesign my pallet projects to use shorter boards, I can save more useable wood from my pallet demolitions in a shorter period of time using a circular saw.

For example, in a raised bed, I too first built them with long boards. But when I started using pallet wood, I quickly discovered that I had much better yield of useable wood if I could redesign my raised bed to use shorter pieces of planks. What I have come up, after a number of tries, is what I call my pallet wood raised bed v2.0 which uses the 4-foot pallet wood 2X4's uncut, and the side boards are pallet planks cut down to 16 inches high...

View attachment 3885609


This latest design has proven to be a much better, stronger, build for me because the 2X4 framing is on the outside. That eliminates side wall blowouts I had from earlier raised beds with the support framing on the inside.

Although the raised bed is 16 inches high, because the 2X4 framing is on the outside, I can actually use plank pieces anywhere from 11-16 inches long because they are hidden behind the 2X4's. Believe it or not, that allowed me to use up a lot of shorter plank pieces I had accumulated from breaking down the pallets and some boards breaking or cracking at the ends.

My first raised beds where 4X8 feet because it was easier to buy 2X6's or 2X8's in 8-foot lengths. And I still have some of those older beds in use. But I have come to like the smaller 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds because I can get around them easier.

Of course, the best thing about my 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds is that it only costs me about $2.00, or less, for new screws and nails to make each bed. I use new screws and my nail gun to save time. If I reused my pulled pallet wood nails, I could probably build the entire raised bed for free, but it would just take me a bit longer.

Absolutely wonderful!
Man, you're making me want to go build one of those right now! I totally agree with you.

I would do things differently with what I know now. There have been issues with having the beds as big as they are and having the boards horizontal. 4x4' beds sound spectacular and very easy to maneuver around. You've really got those garden beds down. Yours looks so beautiful and sturdy!

 

[gtaus]

Our beds do have issues with buckling under the weight they are holding. We needed to re-enforce several areas.

Yes, my first 4X8 foot raised beds had issues with bowing out in the middle, sidewall blowouts, and some corners have come apart. I have had to reinforce those beds a number of times. In contrast, the 4X4 pallet wood raised bed v2.0 that I am now building does not have any of those problems. Well, none yet at least.

It is super smart to design your building plans around the size of the boards you are most easily able to get.

Thank you. Over the past few years, whenever I build something out of pallet wood, for example, I ask myself if there is a better way to build it so I can "cheat" and use up more scraps of wood. Like in that raised bed, with the framing on the outside, my normal sidewall boards are 16 inches high, but I can use scraps as short as 11 inches long and hide them behind the 2X4 frames. You would never know looking at the raised bed from the outside.

They also ended up being a difficult height to reach into, unfortunately. I can't easily bend without my knees hitting the top boards of the bed. I pop them out on accident when I lean against them.

Height matters. I started off with 6-inch-high raised beds about 10 years ago, but as I got older, I have now moved on to 16-inch-high raised beds. I even have some raised beds that are 24-inches- high. The best thing about building your own raised beds is that you can make them whatever height works best for you.

Last year, I met an older couple that was making pallet wood raised beds out of full pallets. So, their raised beds were 4-feet-high! The wife had recently undergone hip surgery and was not able to bend over at all. She loved gardening. So, her husband was building her new raised beds out of full pallets much like we might put some pallets together for a compost bin.

Of course, when you increase the height of a raised bed, that hügelkultur method of filling the bottom of the bed with logs and other organics will save you a ton of money. My top growing layer of soil/compost mix is only 6-8 inches deep, but that is enough for the type of plants I grow.

 

[gtaus]

Absolutely wonderful!
Man, you're making me want to go build one of those right now! I totally agree with you.

I would do things differently with what I know now. There have been issues with having the beds as big as they are and having the boards horizontal. 4x4' beds sound spectacular and very easy to maneuver around. You've really got those garden beds down. Yours looks so beautiful and sturdy!

Thank you. My redesigned 4X4 foot pallet wood bed v2.0 came as an evolution to address problems I had with my earlier raised beds. Live and learn. You just need to find what works for you. As you can tell, my earlier pallet wood raised bed v1.0 needed some improvements. I hope to someday maybe make a new v3.0 pallet wood raised bed design, but so far, I have been stuck on making any more new improvements. Maybe after a few years I will start to notice weaknesses in my current design and think of some improvements.

Again, thank you for sharing your pallet wood raised bed pictures.

Of course, I always look to others on this thread, and elsewhere, to learn from their builds and get new ideas.

 

[gtaus]

There have been issues with having the beds as big as they are and having the boards horizontal. 4x4' beds sound spectacular and very easy to maneuver around.

I forgot to mention that I live in northern Minnesota, and I have been building my 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds in my garage in the winter months. That's about all the bigger I could build in my garage, and I certainly could not move a larger 4X8 foot raised bed by myself. But I can still safely move a 4X4 foot raised bed by myself, load it up on a trailer, and move it out to the backyard garden plot.

 

[Tiffany Wikk]

Yes, my first 4X8 foot raised beds had issues with bowing out in the middle, sidewall blowouts, and some corners have come apart. I have had to reinforce those beds a number of times. In contrast, the 4X4 pallet wood raised bed v2.0 that I am now building does not have any of those problems. Well, none yet at least.

We're having similar issues with our beds as you used to have. This year we had to reinforce one of the beds, as it was seriously bowing out. Thankfully, it's holding up way better now! Still though, I would definitely build things differently if I went back.

Thank you. Over the past few years, whenever I build something out of pallet wood, for example, I ask myself if there is a better way to build it so I can "cheat" and use up more scraps of wood. Like in that raised bed, with the framing on the outside, my normal sidewall boards are 16 inches high, but I can use scraps as short as 11 inches long and hide them behind the 2X4 frames. You would never know looking at the raised bed from the outside.

You've thought this all through so well! You've truly found a wonderful way to make your beds.

Height matters. I started off with 6-inch-high raised beds about 10 years ago, but as I got older, I have now moved on to 16-inch-high raised beds. I even have some raised beds that are 24-inches- high. The best thing about building your own raised beds is that you can make them whatever height works best for you.

Absolutely!

Last year, I met an older couple that was making pallet wood raised beds out of full pallets. So, their raised beds were 4-feet-high! The wife had recently undergone hip surgery and was not able to bend over at all. She loved gardening. So, her husband was building her new raised beds out of full pallets much like we might put some pallets together for a compost bin.

Oh, how sweet of him! What a wonderful way to use pallets that meet their needs. I bet she loved her garden.

Of course, when you increase the height of a raised bed, that hügelkultur method of filling the bottom of the bed with logs and other organics will save you a ton of money. My top growing layer of soil/compost mix is only 6-8 inches deep, but that is enough for the type of plants I grow.

When we were building our beds, we were concerned we wouldn't have enough dirt to fill them! It would be so expensive to fill them with bought dirt. Thankfully, by doing hügelkultur we filled them all completely with debris and dirt to spare even. The only things we bought was some cow manure (we didn't have chickens yet) and a few bags of dirt on sale for ~$1 each. I'm so glad we could repurpose all that yard debris for the garden! So useful!

Thank you. My redesigned 4X4 foot pallet wood bed v2.0 came as an evolution to address problems I had with my earlier raised beds. Live and learn. You just need to find what works for you. As you can tell, my earlier pallet wood raised bed v1.0 needed some improvements. I hope to someday maybe make a new v3.0 pallet wood raised bed design, but so far, I have been stuck on making any more new improvements. Maybe after a few years I will start to notice weaknesses in my current design and think of some improvements.

Well, your beds look spectacular and so sturdy! Definitely sturdier than mine.

Again, thank you for sharing your pallet wood raised bed pictures.

Of course, I always look to others on this thread, and elsewhere, to learn from their builds and get new ideas.

I've benefited so much from people's ideas here on BYC. There is an abundance of information and ideas. I love learning about so many of these ideas!

I forgot to mention that I live in northern Minnesota, and I have been building my 4X4 foot pallet wood raised beds in my garage in the winter months. That's about all the bigger I could build in my garage, and I certainly could not move a larger 4X8 foot raised bed by myself. But I can still safely move a 4X4 foot raised bed by myself, load it up on a trailer, and move it out to the backyard garden plot.

So smart! I'm so sold on wanting to make some beds like yours some day. They are so amazing!