How did the reclaimed pallet wood garden beds hold up? It has been a year since we have put these free raised beds into action and they have done us well so far. Throughout the last year this project has become fairly popular and there have been some common questions that I thought I would try to answer here.
Will the pallet wood hold up to moister over the long term? This is a very valid concern and one that I, quite honestly, shared as well. They have only been through one year so far but as far as I can tell they have held up perfectly. I do not see any signs of rotting where the soil has been in contact with the wood and the outside of the wood has aged nicely. Only time will tell the full story here but I would guess we can get about 5 years out of these before we start noticing any issues.
Aren’t pallets treated with chemicals that are unsafe for your garden? The wood that we are using from the pallets was all heat treated and this is something you should look for when using it for food production. We also lined the first set of beds with greenhouse plastic since the wood had some oil staining on it we didn’t want in the soil.
What soil mix are we using? Last year we decided to try the square foot gardening method with these raised beds. With that came using the Mel’s mix soil mixture that consists of 1/3 compost 1/3 peat and 1/3 vermiculite. This is a very nice soil mix however it can get pretty expensive to fill beds of this size and vermiculite is hard to source locally. We ended up having to order ours online and it was not cheap! In an effort to keep costs down after we had already ordered the vermiculite we ended up probably not putting in enough compost and good nutrients and added more peat as a filler. Needless to say in the end the growth we had was not stellar. We were happy with our little gardens but this year we want to focus on filling them for less and increasing production.
I will have another article soon with our new method of soil fill for the four new pallet beds that I have just built, stay tuned for more on that. We are focusing on locally sourced and bulk materials rather than as much big box store products.
Do you put landscape cloth in the bottom of the beds? This question comes up often and then answer to that is yes and no. With the two original beds I put together I did line the bottom with cardboard before I filled it up. However, I do feel that this is largely unnecessary and I don’t think it really serves a purpose.
Would you use screws rather than nails to construct these next time? I was surprised at how well the nails held up with the original two that I constructed and so I continued to use nails with the rest that I have built. The fact is, I suppose screws would hold better in the long run but that brings up the cost significantly since you need quite a lot of screws for each one. I used drywall nails that I had laying around for the first few and some roofing nails for the rest and they seem to hold up just fine
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Video Rating: / 5
I spent a lot of money on staining/protecting my pallet slats, but rotted after 1 year.
SSL I used compose from my local dump they have free compose dirt and free wood chips. and I got free pallets to make mine. I also went to home depot and got bags of manure for $1.29 a bag so total cost was $10.50 plus the seeds.✌✌✌
That wasn't bark at 5:20. It was a disc brake pad. You really are being too cheap…
My go to mixture for filling my raised beds is 60% compost and 40% coconut coir. The coconut coir can get expensive when bought in single packs, but if you buy a good portion of it, it can actually be a better deal than peat.
Pallets are heat treated to kill insects in the wood especially pallets used in the food industry. The pallet industry is very competitive so they use the cheapest wood, cheap nails, etc.I always carry a couple of pails in my truck along with a small shovel. If I see a small pile of soil into a pail it goes. I collect soil from the public forests, river banks, lake shores any where except private lands that I may have a little soil. On our few acres in zone 7 British Columbia I have several piles of soil just waiting for us to build a few more raised beds. Happy Gardening and God Bless
I had a question why are your beds only 8×4 feet long? why not do 1 bed 24×4 foot long since you have access to the sides. I know there might be a issue with how much the soil pushes out but can't you reinforce? The reason i ask is have a 16ish foot area im looking to get a raised bed for and would like to have it 16×4 instead of 8×4 and 6×4 Thanks for your time love the videos :)
Cardboard under ur raised beds will attract worms as the worms eat the cardboard. Also the plants roots would go right through the cardboard if they did go that deep.
great video but green and white gloves do not qualify as MSU gear seen in most of your videos. :-)
So…when can we expect the new video with what you come up with for filling your beds with good soil on a budget? Anxiously awaiting! 🙂 Building my beds now!
Does pallet wood leach off chemicals like treated lumber over time?
have you tried composting in them ? then you can compost one year next start to plant?
That is a good challenge, filling up your garden beds for $10 or less. Yes the Mel's mix is really expensive. I use the SQG method too but just use regular soil mixed with compost, chicken manure and worm castings.
Compost now a day is different from back then. Not sure but in the late 80 to the 90s there weren't bark and wood chip. They were dirt vermiculite that I notice. It may depend on brand. It take a whole year for mulch to break down into good compost. Tomato lettuce and leaves from trees take 6 months. I find dirt bought from the store now a days contain more bark and shredded mulch. For indoor use. Outdoor the compost is greater. I like raise bed it hold in moisture and your vegetable's grow faster. Across my community an increase in people using raise bed also people are collecting pallet for multi purpose used. Like buildings a shed. I do agree with you about people throwing cardboard and other none vegetables mater in and cover it up with dirt. Great videos