Firefly Stitches: Pallet Garden

Before I was introduced to Pinterest I consider myself to be very crafty and creative but over the past few months of "pinning" I have found myself saying more and more, "why didn't I think of that?" My latest find was the awesome idea of pallet gardening. A few weeks ago my husband mentioned that he could get pallets from work for free and I made this wonderful wooden pallet table. That same weekend we started this fun garden project.

This was the tutorial that I originally found:

Via Gilannie

My husband and I live on just over .75 acres of land. It seems to be just perfect for our two dogs a nice inground pool and now a beautiful garden area. The main reason the pallet garden appealed to me was because we did not have access to a tiller and if you can see in the image below our area is covered in that horrible southern centipede grass and we had no way to break it up or get rid of all of the grass and weeds.

Here is what we did:

We used 4"x4"x8' posts and stacked them two high and made two rows to start. Make sure you nail them together at each end so they don't topple over when you add the pallets and soil.

I could have done the nailing by myself but it's always better to ask a buff shirtless man you help you!

While the buff shirtless man is working take pictures of any cute babies that you happen to find in your yard :)

Ok, so back to the part about not having a tiller. Newspaper is a great and semi free weed stopper. I know that eventually it will turn to compost but you can lay weed stop sheets or another form of weed preventative if you would like. Do not spray this area with weed killers because that can transfer to your veggies. I laid newspaper over the entire surface and sprayed with water to hold it in place and then we laid the pallets on top.

Once we got the paper down and the pallets in, this is what it looked like. We ended up making two beds that were 8x8'. Once you have everything in place you will want to remove every second or third pallet slat for the  area where you will plant your produce.

Go to your local nursery and get topsoil. One ton of soil was about $33 and filled one of the 8x8 areas.

Sadly I don't own a dump truck or a hauler so I put my muscles and shovel to work. Fill the pallets all of the way with soil. Make sure you get all of the nooks and crannies or your soil will start to sink once you water your garden.

I purchased some plants, we started some from seeds and we ordered some from an online nursery back in the fall. Place them all where you want them to go and put the markers in the soil and plant them in the open areas of the pallet.

Once you are finished planting it should look a little something like this!

Roma  and big boy tomatoes

Strawberries

Bell peppers and banana peppers

Cucumbers

Raspberry plant and rosemary

Sweet mint

Mint can be very invasion so I planted a few cinder blocks worth of mint with the same newspaper on the ground concept that I used in the garden. 

Stevia

Two weeks post planting and everything seems to be doing awesome. I water the garden each morning and that is about all of the maintenance required at this time.

Brittney