As a gardener concerned with the environment, you’re always looking for ways to turn trash into things you can use in landscaping. Pallets are easy to find, and grocery stores, home improvement stores, and lumber yards often give them away for free. Use one or more of these do-it-yourself projects with pallets to give your garden a unique, pretty, and useful look.

Vertical herb garden

A small herb or vegetable garden can be made from a used wood pallet. Your new vertical garden won’t take up much room, and you can start using it in about an hour. To grow plants, you can put pots or planter boxes inside or on the pallet.

Some pallets might have been employed to move gasoline or even other dangerous chemicals. Or they could have bugs or mold in them. Before using your pallet planter to grow food, ensure the wood is safe. If the pallets have been subjected to heat instead of treated with chemicals, most of them are safe to use.

Cost: In most cases, it’s free. Or, you can buy a pallet for about $16.

Pallet bridge or path

What could be more magical than knowing where a path leads? Using old pallets to make a garden path can add some mystery to your yard and make it more useful.

How to do that: Clear and level the land you want to use, pack the soil down, and set the pallets. If you need to, you can add more dirt over them to make them more stable. Watch Funky Junk Interiors’ Donna make a pallet walkway.

With more work and the right tools, you can cut the pallets to separate the boards and utilize them to build the walkway. As this tutorial shows, you can also nail them to the ground to make them even stronger. This DIY project may be accomplished with any food-safe pallet.

Cost: You can buy a bunch of 10 recycled pallets online for around $14 each if you can’t get enough for free.

Compost bin

With this do-it-yourself project, you can transform old pallets into a compost bin and utilize food scraps and yard waste as soil sample enricher and fertilizer. This is a big win for recycling.

How to do it: You don’t need any tools for this pallet design. Four wood pallets and a backpack of heavy-duty zip ties are all you need. Pick a location for your compost bin, level the soil there, and then connect the cargo pallets at a 90-degree angle.

Cost: You can ask local garden centers, repair shops, or grocery stores if they have free pallets.

Freestanding trellis

The easiest way to build a freestanding pallet trellis for your garden is to put a hinge on the top of the two. This DIY pallet project is easy for anyone because the pallets do not have to be removed with saws and other tools.

Best plants for a pallet trellis: Some of the best fruits and vegetables to grow in this vertical pallet garden are cucumbers, melons, pole beans, smother, tomatoes, and raspberries.

Cost: You could get pallets for free at stores near you and hinges priced between $7 and $40, depending on how big they are and how many you need.

Chicken coop

Your mini farm has fruit and vegetable gardens, but you would like to add chickens to improve its appearance. A pretty low-cost job. Taking care of five hens costs about $69 a month. You can save cash on eggs and chicken mutton at the store with a few chickens on your property. You can also build a cheap place for your chickens to live out of old pallets.

Details: Take apart just a few wooden pallets and use the slats to build the walls. Then, build your chicken coop and use deck screws to connect the floor, door, and roof. Instructables show step-by-step how to do things.

Cost: Businesses near you will give you pallets for free. If you don’t, buying regular wood will cost you about $650.

Pallet-based privacy fencing

Anyone can build a normal fence, but normal isn’t your style. Instead, make a fence out of pallets by showing how unique and creative you are. With pallet fences, your landscaping will stand out. They additionally save you money because most shipping pallets are free and can be used more than once.

Line up enough large pallets (96 inches by 48 inches) vertically to cover the area you want to block off, then connect them with roofing nails or deck screws. This will start by giving you a privacy fence that is 8 feet tall.

Forty-eight by 40 inches pallets can be used to fence in a garden (or 4 feet by about 3.5 feet). To grow food in your garden, use heat-treated pallets rather than pressure-treated materials, which might leach chemicals into the soil.

Cost: Pallets should be free, but you may need to buy screws, a drill, and untreated wood planks if you don’t already have them. You can buy pine boards without a finish for $5. With screws and a drill, you can probably have spent more than $100.

I made a swing from pallets.

You can’t tell us why a pallet swing isn’t cooler than a hammock. A pallet swing is simple to construct and is a great place to sit under a tree with a cool drink and a book or magazine you like.

Sand and clean up two pallets. If you want to, you can also paint your pallets. If you want to, you can use wood-based paint for the outside. You can attach this half-piece to the pallet with a drill and screws. Then cut holes for the rope to go through. Hang your paddle from a strong tree branch and decorate it with colorful throw pillows, cushions, and blankets.

Cost: Pallets are free at a local store, an electric sander costs $14, and each can of paint costs about $30.

Tagged : gardening

As summer approaches, you might consider making your garden as cozy and inviting as possible. There’s no better time to start changing your home, whether you want to have barbecues for your friends or spend warm summer evenings with your family.

If you get organized and start changing your garden early in the year, it will be ready for your summer plans. You can avoid rushing around at the last minute and enjoy the sunny weather when winter returns.

Despite what most people think, garden renovations don’t have to be expensive, hard, or take a lot of time. With a small budget, you can completely change your garden into the perfect outdoor space for your needs in just a few weeks.

5 Steps to a Complete Garden Renovation

By streamlining the renovation process, you can save money and simultaneously create a stylish and useful outdoor space. You can’t skip many important steps when making changes to the outside of your home. We’ll review these steps so you can update their garden again for the hot summer months.

Set up a place to sit.

During the warm summer evenings, you, your family, and your guests will need a place to relax. Use interlocking retaining wall blocks to split a corner of your garden from the rest of your outdoor space.

With building structural blocks, you can make your garden look better by choosing a design and aesthetic you like. Once you’ve built a wall around the area you want, you can add additional decorations to make the area feel warm and welcoming. You might want to put comfy chairs and big flower pots in the space.

You could hang lights along the bottom of your newly constructed wall or the fence to make the area brighter and more relaxing. Solar outdoor lamps are a good choice to save money on your electricity bill.

Purchase a new garden shed.

Buying a cedar shed for your garden will give you a place to store all your tools and equipment out of the way. You can maintain your outdoor space clean, organized, and free of dangers. The shed should look good in your garden and not get in the way or take up too much space.

It would help to consider how your shed looks to ensure it fits in with the rest of your home. You should expect to pay a few hundred dollars for a simple garden shed. Large study sheds might cost as much as $1,000 or more.

Mow the yard

It may not sound particularly exciting to fix up your garden to pull out the lawn mower, but preparing your outdoor space for summer is typically necessary. It doesn’t matter how recently purchased or brightly colored your garden furniture or pots are; if you have muddy grass, your garden will start to seem old and worn.

When the temperature outside rises, you may need to cut your grass more often. Set aside approximately ten minutes monthly to trim the grass and maintain some semblance of order in the yard. You can also employ a gardener to undertake the task on your behalf.

Replace or upgrade your patio.

If you have a patio in your garden, you must take a few extra steps to make your outdoor space look brand new. It’s a good idea to get a new patio for your garden if you want it to look and feel more modern. Styles and plans for patios are always changing. You can maintain up with the latest trends and keep your garden looking great by installing new patio boards.

If you want to save money, all you need to do to fix up your patio is give it a quick coat of paint or gloss. Both paint and gloss add a layer of protection to keep your patio in good shape all summer. Before you paint the patio, use a pressure washer to remove dust and other debris.

Painting the fence

Work on the fence surrounding your garden after completing any necessary repairs or painting of your patio. The appearance of your outdoor space may be drastically improved with only a few coats of paint.

You may complete painting the fence in one or two days, and you can leave it the same color as it has been for the last several years or give it a new look entirely. After that, you should probably apply a layer of gloss to the paint to protect it from the sun and not lose its color.

Tagged : gardening

As gardeners, we always seek methods to make growing plants easier. Gardening is fun, satisfying, relaxing, and hard work all at the same time. There’s always a task, like a plan, plant, moisture, weed, and harvest. Most gardeners like working in their gardens, sometimes, but you have a lot of things to do, and you feel a very little overwhelmed.

Provide food for the soil.

If you start with good soil, you can grow healthy and full plants. Healthy plants get sick less often, get less damage from pests, and need less water. First, you should buy a soil analysis kit and test your soil. Slow-release organics can be added to soil that lacks sufficient minerals or nutrients.

Then, regularly add organic matter such as compost, seaweed byproducts, bone meal, fish fertilizers, or well-rotted manure. When you’ve opted to apply these organic additions over three or four years, you might reduce your soil feeding and add new compost every other year. Don’t use synthetic fertilizers because they can kill the soil’s great bugs and organic matter.

Group plants to make things easier and have the most effect.

That’s the beginning of the equation. Sun-loving plants should go in the sun, and groundcovers should go where they can keep moving around. But believe how much easier it’d be to provide water if you put all your plants that need a lot of water together, so you could turn on the sprinklers or drag the hose over one area and be done.

How you arrange the plants affects how easy it is to care for them and how nice they look. Plants that grow taller should go in the back or the middle. Next, put plants of medium height all around taller ones and short or trailing plants along the edges.

Choose perennials that don’t need much upkeep.

Make the spine of your flower garden out of hardy plants that don’t need much care. You don’t have to do much during the growing season to take care of these plants. They require little trimming, pinching, staking, or deadheading. You’ll also have gorgeous floral beds you don’t have to pay for yearly.

Use containers and raised beds.

Gardening can be easier and give you more authority over your plants if you use pots and garden beds. You can alter the soil, water, and light and even halt the plants from spreading. You can still grow stuff in containers if you have a tiny balcony or tiny patio to garden on.

Raised beds separate plants from their surroundings. This makes it easier and faster to get rid of weeds. On a bigger scale, you still have the same control as when employing containers, but you won’t have to bend over as much. You must monitor the soil’s moisture in both methods because it will clean out faster.

Install drip irrigation.

Drip irrigation used to be hard to set up and start taking time to measure, buy, and set up, but now it’s as easy as putting together such a tinker toy. You will save money if you do not even rely on rain to wet your gardens. Drip irrigation is far and away the best way to water plants.

It also puts water right where your plants need it, which is good. Plant diseases are kept to a minimum because the water is not sprayed on the leaves but slowly leads to the soil around the plants. If you set a timer, you won’t have to recall to switch it on.

Mulch Again

Mulching makes sense, but you’ve probably heard this a thousand times. Still, a lot of gardeners think that mulch is just for looks. A garden looks better with mulch and takes less time to water, weed, and fertilize. This makes your job easier and gardening easier again!

Organic mulches, aged compost, bark chips, clean straw, dried grass clippings, pine boughs, and chipped wood all aid in the growth of beneficial organisms in the soil. They will slowly break down, which will improve the soil.

I’ve discovered that placing a thin coating of straw mulch around and under strawberries keeps pill insects and slugs from consuming them. It will additionally keep the soil moist, stop diseases that spread through the soil, and keep the apples from having to sit on the ground.

Get Some Wheels

With a good garden trolley or wheelbarrow, you can easily move, carry, and lift things in your garden. You can wheel your tools to the compost pile, move plants, start harvesting, get rid of weeds, and move your crops. Wheels will let you get even more done while placing less strain on your body, regardless of size.

Plant a garden with your kids.

Teach your kids and grandkids as soon as they can how much fun it can be to play in the garden. Change the activities to fit their age. It may be as simple as playing with soil and water for the littlest gardeners. Show them insects, grubs, roots, flowers, and grown seeds.

The kids would rather water than pull weeds. Let them have a place to grow their plants. They might be in charge of a small pot of flowers or a tomato plant. It’s a good way to teach children to be mindful of their things and be proud of what they’ve done.

Tagged : gardening