making a raised bed from pallets

Old tatty pallets that we used to disregard and not even notice have become quite trendy of late. They are given new leases of life, and repurposed as new every day items such as tables or beds...

I was shown how to turn old pallets that were used at work, into raised beds; not quite as exciting as homeware, but very important in the world of herbal gardening.
Many herbs are considered weeds because of how they look (though I still think they look beautiful!), and how they can spread and take over an area. A raised bed contains such spreaders, and I like to think elevates such beautiful herbs even more.

I am completely useless at DIY - I've never really used tools before; but I hoped that determination, and my general heavy handedness, were two skills that would be of some use here.

Making these raised beds was not an easy process - we first had to find 'Euro pallets' amongst the piles that are stored round the back of the factory - according to Fraser, these are the best. This was no easy feat when such a pallet is wedged under a mountain of others that weren't up to standard; pallets are not light!
Once we had hauled one down, it was hefted onto a wheelbarrow to be taken down to the other end of the garden; and so we went to-ing and fro-ing until we had the 32 (!) needed to make 8 raised beds.

It is worth mentioning that not all pallets are safe to use - the bright colourful ones that I wanted to use are in fact used to transport toxic materials, the paint itself is also not great and should not be used indoors, or to grow things in.

You also should look out for an 'IPPC' stamp (International Plant Protection Convention) which means it passes international shipping regulations that helps to prevent a cross contamination of pests across country borders. Pallets are treated either with heat or chemicals, look for 'HT' meaning heat treated on the same stamp. If 'HT is not labelled, you can assume it may have been chemically treated, usually fumigated with methyl bromide which is a nasty pesticide - again, not good if you want to re-use indoors or for growing things. If there is no 'IPPC/HT' stamp there, don't use it.

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fraser's raised bed design...

Tools required:

• At least 2 pallets of the same style and size - this would make a smaller version of what we made
• A handsaw
• A hammer
• A mallet
• A bag of big long nails
• A bag of smaller tack style nails
• Some roof batten
• Being a complete novice, I unfortunately have no idea on sizes or lengths, I do know however that they are all available in what I call 'man shops' - tool shops where men go and talk about tools, and where I felt very out of place being the only female!
  

 Step one - stand pallet vertically and saw down edge of second plank in from right, through the top and middle segments.

Step two - Flip pallet over to do last segment, it's too hard to saw that far down!

* Admittedly I did at first find hand sawing tiring, Frazer would saw down all three segments in the time it took me to do one. I did improve, and could almost keep up by the end, though I now have Popeye arms! *

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 Step three - Do the same now it has been flipped on the other side, cutting down the edge of the second plant in, and flipping again to do the lower segment.

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 Step four - Discard the middle part, it should look like this. Try not to cut down the wrong edge as I had done a few times. It just means more sawing, which if done by hand makes it extra niggly.

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Step 5 - What you should now be left with is sections like this.

• Cut another pallet in the same way.
• Rather than laying the sections as shown here, turn them up-side-down, to make the ends that would finish the box structure.
  

Step six - This is where the hammer and the big long nails come in.

Whilst supporting the up-side-down section with your feet, starting on one side where each pallet section meets at the corner - bang 1st nail as shown top left, and 2nd nail as shown bottom right in this picture.

Go to the other end and do the same again, making sure each pallet sections are attached.
* Again, I struggled here, the nails have to be long to get through both parts of pallets, but they are so long that I kept bending them whilst banging them in, or just kept missing the mark. It took me forever to get each in flush, and Fraser had to often come over to bail out my wonky nails! *

Step seven - We cut one more pallet to go in the middle of the two 'U' shaped ends made, if you don't have the room and used two pallets, then you will have just nailed all four sections together.

This is where the roof batten and the smaller nails are used - to fill the gaps in the middles of each section, keep the soil in, and keep other things out.

They also act as struts that hold the whole bed together. Slot in the gap, and bang nails into each end and middle of each section pallet. Saw off surplus whilst it's attached, it seems easier than measuring up first.

*Sometimes the gaps between the pallets can be uneven and narrow. If this happens, bang in the roof batten with a rubber ended mallet until it fits *

We have made good progress so far, and I like to think that despite my lack of DIY experience, I am now a raised bed making pro! Thanks to Fraser I can now wield saws and hammers competently for any given task.

The next stage is to fill these with soil, and then fill in the pathways with shingle to continue on from what you can see to the left. To fill them we have a mix of our own compost, organic eco soil which is bought in from the local council, and sand. We thoroughly mix these in the wheelbarrow - Equal parts of composts, and a shovels worth of sand, trudge said wheelbarrow through the mud (unfortunately, the garden site is clay, not the best with all the rain this winter, which makes for very wet ground!), tip, and rake.

Again there is and will be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with our trusty wheelbarrows, these raised beds take many trips to fill. But it will be worth it when we plant them up, not only with herbs, but also some delicious organic veggies too that will be used for the on-site staff canteen here - yum!
So I have yet more to learn, and spring to now look forward to to get eveything going; then, all the hard work will have paid off.