[Rural Buckeye Guy]

BIF, I slit old garden hose anf put it in the edges of the metal roof strips. I drilled through and wired them in place with baling wire my FIL had saved from squared hay bales. No cost.

 

[Stwood]

Yes, used tin. I was going to suggest it.
Fill in......use lots of smaller trees/limbs/branches/leaves, then finish with soil.

 

[tantor]

Recycle everything you can. Only buy what you have to. And use Hugelkultur in a raised bed. That's what I did.

 

[ttkciar]

I have watched a few vids on YT for bed ideas from pallets. Kind of like this one. Prying apart pallets is not optimal, so this a nice alternative. Giving it strong consideration.

Thanks for sharing this! We've made plenty of our own raised beds, some from pallet-parts, and I watched that to learn two things: First, if there were an easier alternative to prying pallets apart (it's a lot of work!), and second, how to keep the dirt and roots from pushing the corners apart. The corners have always been the first to go kablooey on ours.

I like his solution to prying: Cut the boards out with a rotary saw and use them vertically instead of horizontally. It seems a bit wasteful (and trimming off extra to make the dimensions precise seems unduly wasteful) but the waste could be minimized by cutting as close to the nails as possible, perhaps.

To secure the corners, we've always screwed the short 2x4 pieces inside the corners, but that was never enough by itself. I guess the 2x4 studs he screwed into the board tops make the difference. I wonder if I could get away with just screwing short pieces over the corners?

Thanks again! I have new things to try, now

 

[Stwood]

Pallet tear down. Cut the nails, not the boards.
Get a sawzall. I'm a cord type guy, not battery. Plenty of used ones on the market (pawn shops/ Craigslist/FarceBook market place) if you don't want to spend the bucks on new.
Blades.......get the name brand bi-metal (Dewalt, Bosch, Milwaukee etc) 12" long blades. Metal/wood blades. These are the blades framers use when they have a whoopsie, and have cut a wall out or whatever, cutting through nails.
Nails are buried usually, and tough to pull because they use spiral type or ring-shank #8 nails. Spiral as in they won't come out easily, but maybe in pine pallets they will. Oak/hardwood......nope.....no comie out.
Stand the pallet on edge, deck board running horizontal.
Start your cut at the gap where 2 boards meet, cutting down and through the nails.
Cut the deck boards away from the end frame boards first, removing those. Then you will have room to get the sawzall between the deck boards to attack the center frame board.
Leave the cutoff nails, unless you are cutting/jointing/ripping those 1/2 and 3/4" deck boards down.

Pallet repair shops use a long horizontal bandsaw blade that is set to a certain height and cuts through all the decks boards one one side....flip pallet over and do the other side.
All good usuable parts are stacked in bins, cut nails left in place. Those pieces are used to rebuild and build pallets.
Pallet shop have manual board removal tools they use if there is one-two boards that need removed and replaced. Pricey, has it's drawbacks.

 

[Cat wrangler]

I am using large tractor tires, heat up nicely. Filled with compost, could use soil. They do need watering.

 

[Velvet Elvis]

Thanks for sharing this! We've made plenty of our own raised beds, some from pallet-parts, and I watched that to learn two things: First, if there were an easier alternative to prying pallets apart (it's a lot of work!), and second, how to keep the dirt and roots from pushing the corners apart. The corners have always been the first to go kablooey on ours.

I like his solution to prying: Cut the boards out with a rotary saw and use them vertically instead of horizontally. It seems a bit wasteful (and trimming off extra to make the dimensions precise seems unduly wasteful) but the waste could be minimized by cutting as close to the nails as possible, perhaps.

To secure the corners, we've always screwed the short 2x4 pieces inside the corners, but that was never enough by itself. I guess the 2x4 studs he screwed into the board tops make the difference. I wonder if I could get away with just screwing short pieces over the corners?

Thanks again! I have new things to try, now

Have watched a few videos on this, and all began with prying the pallets apart. So that I how I began. It didn't take long to determine I don't have that kind of time, and many of the boards were splitting on me. I get the stink eye from wife already on these projects, so I knew I had to find a better approach. Found this not long after. Would be nice to see a follow up from this channel to see how well they held up. One thing I noticed too is that he has some nice pallets with wide boards. I picked up 15 pallets, and maybe two of them have nice wide boards. That is going to make for a lot more cutting and a lot more screws. Not a big deal, will probably be sturdier with more points being secured. I'm thinking of lining the interior with a weed barrier though. Seems like the soil would slip between the boards otherwise.

 

[beaner]

We do a mix of traditional gardening and raised beds. This year I went a little overboard with sprouting potatoes and have a dozen left over when we ran out of room. Rather than more a fence to do another row I am trying old sand bags. I have a bundle left over from a previous life in the army that have been taking up space for far too long.

Not sure how it will work out but filled a dozen bags with dirt and tied them off. Laid them flat and cut a slit for one potato per bag. Now a couple of the raised beds look like little bunkers. With any luck, this fall they will be the easiest potatoes I ever harvested.

 

[st0n3]

We're in the process of relocating out of the urban jungle to our cabin property. The soil is sandy, and I have a bunch of trees to clear in order to open up some gardening space.

I'm going to go the raised bed route temporarily.

My thought is to acquire some free horse manure, but that takes time to compost properly.

Not sure that anybody mentioned this... Sandy soil is the last place where you would want raised beds.
My previous garden in the clay was like a half acre of raised beds, worked fine.
Where I am now? not so much...
It's like 200 foot deep beach sand... That drainage is rough!

I don't know why people keep insisting that you can't use fresh manure. If they ever tested that theory... They'd stop repeating it.
Fresh horse poop is fine. I add it when I get it.

Where are you gardening?

 

[Stwood]

I don't know why people keep insisting that you can't use fresh manure. If they ever tested that theory... They'd stop repeating it.
Fresh horse poop is fine. I add it when I get it.

Yep. I don't know why either.
I use both horse and goat and chicken....fresh....6mo old.....year old. Whatever is closest from the barnyard/pasture to the garden.