Using Pallets, Reclaimed Wood and Lumber in the Garden

Shipping skids and pallets can be very useful in the garden in quite a number of ways. These are great materials to use when building a vegetable garden, because they are free, which will make your food have a low final cost. They're trash which means recycling them for other uses will keep them from the landfill and help the environment.

Raised beds are one of the first things that come to mind when I think of repurposing lumber in the garden, and I've written an article here with instructions on doing that. There are lots of other things that can be done with the extra scraps in and around the garden as well, though.

Long pieces of narrow wood from skids can be used as poles for climber peas and pole beans. For safety, any staples or nails should be removed and the poles lightly sanded. Bean poles should be about six feet long, so the beans will have plenty of room to climb. Three tied together at the top, and then driven into the ground in a tripod will make a very sturdy structure.

Narrow pieces of wood will make good stakes for using in the garden as well. These stakes can be the corners of raised beds, or can be used to support tall plants like peppers and tomatoes They can mark rows, or hold plant marker signs, and they can mark small plants in the yard, to alert the person mowing the lawn that there is a valuable shrub or sapling amidst the grass. Stakes can also hold trellising or wire mesh for squash and cucumber plants to climb, or can be strung with twine to be used for runner beans and peas.

Small decorative or functional items can be made from the lumber reclaimed from pallets as well. Birdhouses are great to have in the garden, since birds are good assistants at keeping bugs and pests off the plants. A few nice birdhouses will help to make the garden a welcoming environment for them, and bird feeders will draw more of the beneficial creatures.

An ambitious plan for using pallets in the garden could well include fencing. It would take quite a few of them, but there are a number of ways that they could be used to fence in a garden plot and protect the tender plants. Standard pallets could be used as is, and slid onto stakes to hold them up on end, butted against each other. Boards could be taken from one side, and used to fill the gaps on the other, forming a solid panel. There are as many ways of building fencing with pallets as there are gardeners to do it.

Using the free and recycled wood available in shipping pallets is a great way to save money in the garden in many ways, and practice a little ingenuity when planning projects. It also is an eco-friendly way of harvesting materials, saving them from landfills, and not taking up new resources in the effort to improve the garden.