Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

This used to be common along with spraying gravel roads with used oil.

I grew up in a small rural town of about 300 people. We had gravel roads in town, and I do remember them spraying the gravel roads with used oil. In fact, if you changed your car oil at home, you would take the old oil out to the road and sprinkle the oil on the gravel. It was great for keeping down the dust. I don't think anybody thought of potential negative effects. The immediate positive effect was that we did not have to breath in a cloud of gravel dust every time a car went down the road.

 

[Molpet]

I grew up in a small rural town of about 300 people. We had gravel roads in town, and I do remember them spraying the gravel roads with used oil. In fact, if you changed your car oil at home, you would take the old oil out to the road and sprinkle the oil on the gravel. It was great for keeping down the dust. I don't think anybody thought of potential negative effects. The immediate positive effect was that we did not have to breath in a cloud of gravel dust every time a car went down the road.

Yeppers
I was a kid when they paved the road I live on. One lane and Gravel in front of the houses and through the woods it was dirt. Had to keep the windows closed.
Now they are surveying to make turn lanes.

 

[gtaus]

There was a huge stack of them behind the post office. I was told to take as many as I wanted.

That's interesting. I'll have to check our local post office to see if they have any pallets laying around out back. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[gtaus]

I need to get hubby's help on getting pallets. They won't fit in the car, and I'm not going to pull the trailer with the Jeep.

Yeah, that's a "tool" I don't know how to use, and don't desire to learn how.

My old 1993 Ford Explorer is like a pickup with a topper on it. I can get as many as 6 standard sized pallets in the backend. I keep that old Explorer just as a work truck for stuff like that. It also has a hitch on the rear bumper, and I will use it to pull my boats and trailers.

The only real challenge is backing up a trailer. I have a harder time turning around in the car to watch the trailer as I back up. Somewhere in these years, I turned into my grandpa. But I have years of experience to rely on and so backing up a trailer is not that bad for me. Of course, going forward with a trailer is very easy.

Pulling a trailer is a skill and when I have to do precision backing up, I wait until I have someone outside the car giving me directions. I can understand someone not wanting to learn how to drive with a trailer.

I prefer to just toss up to 6 pallets in the back end of my old Explorer and not have to deal with a trailer as I make my way through town. In fact, I have six pallets in the back of the Explorer right now and have not processed them yet because it has been raining on/off for the past few days. No problems as the wood is staying nice and dry under the roof of the car. I can wait for good weather conditions before I unload and/or breakdown those pallets.

 

[gtaus]

Well, today I saw evidence of deer eating my pepper plants in one of my raised beds with an open top 2-foot-high chicken wire fence cage around it. Not only do the deer eat the peppers, but they also munch down on the plant as well.

That got me to considering my protection options for next year. For the pepper plant beds, I would like a 4-foot-high chicken wire cage around the top of the raised bed with wire on top to prevent the deer from reaching in and eating the tops off the plants. But I still need to be able to get into the bed myself to pick the peppers and maintain the soil.

I figure I need 4-foot-tall chicken wire because my pepper plants typically grow over 3 feet high. But that is a large cage and might be a problem for me to constantly have to take off to pick some peppers when ready to harvest. I am considering some options like hinges, or removable panels. Have not decided on what system would work best for me.

All I know is that next year I will have to have everything protected or risk losing most of the crop to the deer again!

 

[Sally PB]

The only real challenge is backing up a trailer.

Yes. It would take me a while to get used to having an extra 10-12 feet behind me too. Turning tight corners could be an issue.

All I know is that next year I will have to have everything protected or risk losing most of the crop to the deer again!

IKR??!! The deer this year are eating like they've never seen food before! I wonder if they know something about the coming winter that we don't...

 

[NanaK]

Pulling and backing a trailer is not all that difficult. Just takes practice.

Now, the first time I backed the boat down the ramp to put it in the water I was nervous. Other boaters were watching and waiting to use the ramp.
They were so nice when they found out I was learning.

I'm still not crazy about pulling anything but I know I can.

 

[JiCizzy]

We don't have poisonous snakes in Minnesota. I have seen a few mice running in the chicken coop, but they cannot get into the hanging feeder, so I don't worry much about them. I do have a live catch mouse catcher that I could use if they become a problem. I think it's called the Iron Cat or something like that.

If you have a problem with snakes, is it the deep litter that attracts them or is it just a hungry snake looking for eggs to eat? I would think a compost bin would be even a better hiding place for a snake. At least in the chicken run, or coop, the chickens would be busy turning up the litter all the time.

I guess if I had a problem with snakes, I would be using a very long handled pitchfork whenever I was messing around with compost or litter. Don't blame you for wanting to reduce potential nesting material for snakes.

What type of mice proof hanging feeders do you use?

 

[gtaus]

The deer this year are eating like they've never seen food before! I wonder if they know something about the coming winter that we don't...

This morning I went outside to discover that two of my raised beds filled with Roma tomatoes had been completely devasted overnight! I had 8 Roma tomato plants in them, full of nice sized green tomatoes, and this morning nothing was left. They literally ate dozens and dozens of tomatoes in one night! The deer are also starting to eat some of my bean plants, which they have left alone till now. They continue to munch on my pepper plants as well. I have never had this problem with deer before...

I have been watching a few hours of YouTube videos on how to deer proof my garden, or at least the individual raised beds which is what I think I will do. At the moment, I am thinking about adding those vertical 2X4's for a trellis system on each raised bed but adding removable chicken wire panels to keep out the deer. Still working on a number of ideas, but any solution has to be easy to remove so I can maintain the beds and harvest food.

My plan this summer was to build more raised beds this fall, but right now my priorities have all shifted into coming up with a system that protects my plants from the rabbits, squirrels, and deer that are wreaking havoc on my garden this year.

I really had a good year in the sense that my new raised beds were working out great. The plants love the chicken run compost and topsoil mix I use in the raised beds. My plants, for the most part, grew tall and strong as long as they did not get damaged by rabbits or squirrels. I would have had lots and lots of tomatoes this year, but the deer robbed me of that harvest last night. Anyways, I am very happy with the growing aspect of the garden, now I just need to find some good ways to protect the food from the animals.

 

[Smokerbill]

This morning I went outside to discover that two of my raised beds filled with Roma tomatoes had been completely devasted overnight! I had 8 Roma tomato plants in them, full of nice sized green tomatoes, and this morning nothing was left. They literally ate dozens and dozens of tomatoes in one night! The deer are also starting to eat some of my bean plants, which they have left alone till now. They continue to munch on my pepper plants as well. I have never had this problem with deer before...

I have been watching a few hours of YouTube videos on how to deer proof my garden, or at least the individual raised beds which is what I think I will do. At the moment, I am thinking about adding those vertical 2X4's for a trellis system on each raised bed but adding removable chicken wire panels to keep out the deer. Still working on a number of ideas, but any solution has to be easy to remove so I can maintain the beds and harvest food.

My plan this summer was to build more raised beds this fall, but right now my priorities have all shifted into coming up with a system that protects my plants from the rabbits, squirrels, and deer that are wreaking havoc on my garden this year.

I really had a good year in the sense that my new raised beds were working out great. The plants love the chicken run compost and topsoil mix I use in the raised beds. My plants, for the most part, grew tall and strong as long as they did not get damaged by rabbits or squirrels. I would have had lots and lots of tomatoes this year, but the deer robbed me of that harvest last night. Anyways, I am very happy with the growing aspect of the garden, now I just need to find some good ways to protect the food from the animals.

So sorry about your deer problem. That's what happened to me last spring. One morning I noticed that a few plants were munched on and didn't think it was too bad, so I did nothing. The next morning, as you described, my garden was completely decimated! It made me sick to my stomach.

After trying a few different things I ended up with the "cages" built around each raised bed, but that made access to the beds difficult.

So I put up a 4 foot fence around the garden area. And after a deer jumped over that this spring and nibbled a couple of plants I extended the height of the corner posts to around 10 feet and strung several runs of rope, spaced about a foot apart, all the way around the garden area, creating a 10 foot high visible barrier. It's not pretty but it works. So far, anyway.