Simple One Pallet Planter

by Barry Neeson in Living > Gardening

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Simple One Pallet Planter

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Well it's summer time or at least what passes for it here in Scotland and what better time to revamp the garden.

This instructable is part of my fiance and I's plan to revamp our back garden on a budget and we have kicked off by re-purposing some pallets into planters. Given that pallets are generally left laying around it's a cheap instructable with the most expensive material being the lining (and that was pretty cheap).

Its also a fairly simple instructable and can be completed in under an hour using hand tools with the most specialist bit of equipment I'm using being a staple gun

Tools and Materials

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Materials

Pallet

Lining (for this I'm using some weed control fabric)

Nails (I'm using two inch but as all pallets are a bit different you may want to adjust these)

Staple gun staples

Tools

Hammer

Saw (not pictured but I'm using a Japanese hand saw)

Staple gun

Cutting It Up

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Its up to you how high/deep you want to make your planter. for my purposes I wanted to keep them pretty low so I measured 3 boards in and cut across the 3 main support boards.

Flip it over and cut the 3 base boards as near to the edges as possible. it is possible to pry them off but this gives you the job of hammering out the nails plus as pallet timer isn't always the best you might just end up breaking them and we have plans for these bits.

Some Assembly Required

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Now you have your two sides take some of the left over wood and cut for roughly equal lengths. The length is up to you in regards to how far out you wish your planter to come. For our purposes we wanted to keep them narrow so i made them roughly a foot in length.

Attach a length and each of the base blocks.

Lining

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again as all pallets are different this step is a bit "Rough".

Measure out a piece of your lining you want it to be big enough that it sits comfortably on the base without being taught and leave some extra over hang at the sides.

At one end fold the lining to create a "Hem" of sorts and staple it along the end of your frame.

Tuck the fabric down and repeat along the other side remembering to create a hem. you may have some extra, dont worry about it. you can trim it off or leave it be.

For the corners take your over hand and fold it up into end "posts" of the planter (much like wrapping the ends of a present) and staple them into place. repeat on the other 3 corners. you will still have a bit of "droop" but we will sort that in the next step.

Finishing Up

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Take your remaining two lengths and attach them across the top at the ends.

Any "droop" in the edges of the lining can be stapled to the underside of these lengths.

And your done :)

As you can see from the last picture you can make them from almost any pallet (in reasonable condition).

Additionally I have put anti snail tape around the top and covered it with chicken wire to stop the squirrels.

Enjoy