Wood Pallets – Never Free Farm

I first made raised beds out of wooden pallets in 2015, when we were in our first years of urban homesteading. We were living on a lot 1/3 of an acre in size, so I fit in beds where I could amongst the permanent beds I had built. At the time, I had heard about building from pallets (oh so long ago!) and got to work. I needed a quick solution because we had extra tomatoes and peppers to plant.

When you pick up pallets (and it’s very easy to source them for free; ask at locally owned hardware stores and such; they often have them outside to pick up), you will want to look at the side of the pallets to ensure you are using basic ones, without treatments. See here for an easy breakdown.

The good news is that the “bad” pallets (chemically treated) are usually expensive to make/very durable, so the companies often return them for reuse. They are not often left out for free.

The project we started:

Using a sawzall, I cut off the top boards (now we have a pallet wrecker that pops the boards off). I left the center rib in while stacking two pallets to make a deeper bed.

WIth a staple gun I attached yard/garden fabric to the bottom, then the sides. I trimmed the excess fabric.

I flipped it over and attached the fabric on top; it was done. I found a spot between bushes and beds.

It was filled with a light blend of potting mix and compost, and then I planted tomatoes and pepper plants in it.

I used it for about two years before it fell apart. When that happened, I discarded the fabric, tossed the soil in the compost bin, and burned the wood in our fire pit. Not long after, we moved, leaving urban life behind in 2018, and my raised bed idea was long forgotten.

I saw a photo on Facebook posted on a gardening page the other week, and I remembered that bed long ago.

I looked around the property and found a well-used pallet holding a tarp on a compost pile.

With the work I am doing in the fenced berry bed (it’s a vast garden plot), I have lots of room to add raised beds here and there. I don’t want permanent structures, so this worked.

I had a bit of yard fabric left over, so I stapled it onto the wood.

This time, I decided to leave the boards on the pallet for rows.

I filled it up with deeply broken-down compost (it’s four years old) and let it settle.

Then, I seeded it with various vegetable seeds.

We shall see how it works this year in this sunny bed tucked in between 2 blueberry bushes.

Minimal cost, as the fabric was a leftover piece and the soil was paid for long ago. I like it when a quick homesteading project happens easily.

~Sarah

When we lived in our previous town, finding wood pallets was very hard. There was such a high demand for them – so many people doing Pinterest projects, and a lack of stores giving them away. The few stores with wooden pallets often charged for them. So, when I was thinking of ideas for making an easy DIY compost bin setup, wood pallets were not high on my list. I figured they wouldn’t be easy to acquire.I asked around on a local Facebook group to at least see, and well, apparently in a more rural and agricultural area, wood pallets are easy to come by.

So after a quick drive into town, and the loading up of the truck, and grabbing a few affordable supplies, I got to work. My first idea of where to put the compost bin setup was closer to the house, but too close to the septic portals. Kirk pointed it out that if we needed anything done, it would be a huge issue. While looking around the open areas of the property, it occurred that near the beehives would be good. It is sunny nearly all day, has good ventilation, and is otherwise not a useable area – it has a slope right below. But perfect for compost. Even when the new bees are added, it will work fine.

We had a compost tumbler we had used for the past 5-6 years, but we left it behind when we sold the house. While it worked, the outer casing always held water, making it hard to tumble. I never felt that it did a good job. When I was growing up we often had piles out back, that my brother and I were required to turn periodically with a pitchfork.

The boys’ school has a farm that they work at weekly – this past week they did an Earth Day celebration, and composting was discussed and worked on. Walker was brow beating me for us not having a current bin. And he was right. With us having moved, I hadn’t had the time to get one going. So I made the time to get it done. It took us about an hour of working, which wasn’t long at all.

The area with the pile of old leaves was the considered area.

Alistaire helped me rake back all the leaves from last Fall. Underneath the ground was bare, and very rich, from the decomposing leaves.

I wanted to make a 2 section compost bin, so I needed 5 wood pallets (always look for the HT stamp on the pallets, for “heat treated”). I picked up a bag of 11.8″ white zip ties. You will need to put together 2 to 3 zip ties to circle each section (it’s considerably cheaper to use 11″ ones than to buy 24″ or bigger ones). For each side I did one on top, and one on the bottom. For a small place you could stop at 3 pallets.

I started the next section and finished it. Was it a bit not-so-level? I worked on that a bit, and made it fit tighter.

Due to the open manner of the pallets, I chose to wrap the lower half with chicken wire. You can find 2 to 3 foot high in both plastic or metal. Plastic can be easier to wrap, with less issues of ripping into your hands. Really though, it comes down to price. Buy what is cheapest. I trimmed all of the zip ties, then used a staple gun to attach the chicken wire.

The wire will help prevent the lower parts of the compost from spilling out.

I put the boys to work, raking the leaves back in. The goal is the right side will be the first bin, using the leaves on the left as needed. It cost me about $20 in supplies, however I used about $10 worth of them to make it.

Tag: Wood Pallets

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Making A Compost Bin From Wood Pallets