Pallet Gardening – How to Create a Wood Pallet Garden

Yesterday I transplanted my first batch of lettuce seedlings to my wood pallet garden. I put the pallet garden together last year using 6 brand new pallets from a local wood company and I was so thrilled with the results, that I’m doing it all over again this year.

Not only are pallet gardens cool, but they are great for the gardener who is a little tight on space so I decided to repost my directions on how to create a wood pallet garden today from scratch. {I can’t believe how much Lucy has grown!!} 😉

Basically all you really need is a wood pallet, some good soil and a packet of seeds. Using a wood pallet to start a garden can not only be a great space saver, but you don’t have to deal with tilling a large garden space or worrying about your plants rotting in the cold and wet soil during the spring and fall months because they are elevated.

What to look for in a wood pallet:

If you live in the Tacoma area you can find new wood pallets from Girard Wood Products in Puyallup, Washington for about $9 each. I bought my pallets here last year for my wood pallet garden and so far they have stood up to the elements. The photo you see above is a picture of a few recycled wood pallets we found behind some buildings last year.

Personally, I suggest using a new, clean, fresh pallet.

But  if you like to live life on the edge, 

Here are a few pointers when looking for recycled pallets:

Look for a pallet that has HT stamped somewhere on the pallet {it’s usually on the side}. This means the pallet was heat treated, or kiln dried as opposed to chemically treated.

Since you can never be sure what chemicals were stored on an old pallet or that there isn’t some sort of awful bacteria lurking inside the recycled pallets it’s recommended that you scrub the wood down with a mixture of diluted bleach and soapy water and let it dry out in the sun before using it to plant anything.

Also, be on the lookout for rusty nails or staples too.

When I first imagined my backyard wood pallet garden, I thought I’d only use 3 wood pallets. But every time I walked by something about it didn’t look right. It need to be BIGGER. So I decided to expand the pallet garden to include 6 wood pallets. 😉

One of the cool things about gardening, is there are oodles of different ways to grow your own food. There are so many containers to chose from, and more growing methods than I care to imagine. Everybody has an opinion, and there own way of doing things. And I think that’s the best part. We all do it differently.

No two gardens {or gardener for that matter} will ever been the same, or have the same growing conditions, but the desire to try new things is something we all have in common. After All, wouldn’t it be boring if we grew the same things, in the same spot every year? How boring would that be?

This is what my wood pallet garden looked like after I got all my pallets in place and filled them with garden soil. If you look closely you’ll notice I have landscape fabric beneath all the wood pallets to prevent weeds.  I can’t praise landscape fabric enough. Seriously, it’s the best stuff ever and you can find it a The Home Depot year round and Costco during the spring and summer months in giant rolls.

If you are an apartment dweller or live in a condo and want to try pallet gardening,  “growing up” a vertical pallet garden might be the way to go instead. Anyway you look at it, garden is about the best hobby on the planet.

Wouldn’t you agree?

~Mavis

Looking for a little more inspiration?  Small Space Container Gardening by Fern Richardson is a great place to start.  Amazon currently has Small-Space Container Gardens in stock and ready to ship.