Raised Beds From Repurposed Shipping Pallets

 Building a RRR (Reduce~Reuse~Recycle) Garden at Cabrillo Elementary

 

Caleb watering the RRR Garden.

My son, Max is a First Grader at Cabrillo Elementary School in San Diego, California. I help out in the classroom quite a bit and I was shocked at how far removed our kids are from the food chain.  This got me thinking.  The first graders should have a first person, hands on experience with their food...and what better way than to start a garden.  The largest issue was that starting a garden is expensive.  Materials, soil, plants and seeds can add up.  Where there is a will, there is a way.

I had been looking on youtube and came across several variations of using a shipping pallet to build a raised bed.  None of the videos were exactly what I was looking for, but they were definitely the catalyst for the project.  I checked on the "Free" section of craigslist and found that a neighbor was doing some landscape work and had pallets to spare.  

I was after a simple method.  My initial thought was to use 2 pallets per bed.  I figured we could just cut the first pallet in half and the second pallet in quarters.  The only issue with this was that I needed my husband's tools (& help) so with that came his vision of the project.  He is more of a perfectionist where I am more of a 'quick and easy as long as it works' type, so we actually did both methods!

Larry assembling the "pretty" version of the boxes.

Larry's idea was to take the pallets apart and reassemble them into the planter boxes.  This method produced much more attractive planter boxes, but it was a pain in the neck.  We used a nail pry bar to loosen the boards and then took them apart.  We removed all of the nails, since they would be used by kids and reassembled the boards with an impact driver (like a drill & screwdriver combo) into a finished box.

Small box made of left over short boards.

The other added advantage to Larry's method is that the boards are close together so the soil will stay in the boxes without additional steps.  For another class of older kids, we made the box Larry is working on (above) that was square, about 42 inches on each side.  For the First Graders, we made them about 42 inches by 21 inches or a half pallet by a quarter pallet.  We did this because we wanted the kids to be able to reach into the boxes.

Two of the finished boxes.

My method was to cut the pallet in half (Larry used a sawzall to cut through the board and nails) and used the short scraps (like 1/4 pallet size) to form the sides using the impact driver and screws.  Although this was much faster, the main drawback  was that there are gaps between the boards of a pallet, so cardboard was needed to line the inside of the boxes to keep the dirt in as pictured above right.

Larry & Max at Miramar Landfill.

So now we needed to fill these boxes.  Because the area that they were being placed was on asphalt, they needed to be fairly tall so that the roots of the plants wouldn't be scorched.  We filled the the bottom half of the boxes with composed hay, left over from the school's 71st annual Halloween Carnival.

As much free compost as you want...Max was in heaven!

The top portion was of each box was filled with FREE compost from our city's landfill.  Basically, they take the green waste collected from households and turn it into compost, which is then offered for free to any resident of San Diego.  Check your city to see what's offered in your area.

Finished Product!

 So our next step was to plant out the boxes.  Since it was nearing the end of the year, we needed items that would grow fast.  I had sprouted some sunflower seeds from raw seeds at Trader Joes.  The only issue is you know you're going to get a sunflower, but not sure what variety...giant or dwarf.  The plus is that you get thousands of seeds for about $1.50 and can eat the rest.

The kids then each got to plant beans, radishes or lettuce, all of which grow pretty fast.  Our local Crown-Ace hardware donated the marigolds and tomato plants.

Cabrillo Elementary School First Grade RRR Garden Area.
Box on the left contains yellow squash, sunflowers & marigolds.
Box on the right contains sunflowers, beans, radishes,
lettuce, tomato,marigolds & pinwheels keep the birds away!

Brianna, Jennifer, Margarita & Miguel.

 As part of the curriculum, the kids made observations on the things they had planted, including drawings!  In the red tub, each kid threw in a hand full of birdseed and made predictions as to what would grow.  We got predictions on everything from a peach tree to watermelon...lol!  The green pots are potatoes, which grow green plants very quickly.

Overall, the RRR Garden Project at Cabrillo Elementary was a success.  The kids have a better understanding of where food comes from and the classes next year are set up to do the same.  On the last day of school, each kid got to take home a plant from the garden.  They were so proud of their accomplishments..."I grew this!"

Brandon & Reggie watering the garden &
making observations in their Science notebooks.

Teachable Moments--Blast From the Past

As the day approaches, I've been thinking about Mother's Day and what it means to be a mother.  This morning I was outside watering in the top gardens.  Max was out there with me, and walked up to me and said, "My turn."   He wanted to use the hose.  I quickly finished up and handed him the hose.  It reminded me of a story I wrote in the Spring of 2008 and what a difference three years can make.  Here is your blast from the past.....3 year old Max and my teachable "mom"ment.  Happy Mother's Day!

Max, age 3, watering the Square Foot garden beds.  Notice the door ajar in the background.

Teachable Moments by Marti Lindsey

Teachable moments...you have got to love them!  My son Max and I have had many teachable moments in his three short years with me.  The first one I can recall is, “Don’t throw chicken at the policeman.”  This occurred shortly after he  turned one and we were eating at Pick Up Stix.  He simply wanted their attention.

Because it's never come up before, we've never had a dialogue about not bringing the hose into the house.  One day in May I was working in my terraced beds and Max was watering the square foot boxes.  These boxes are located near our back door,   He was doing such a great job...a little water in each square...I was so proud.  The thing with kids is that when they become quiet, some thing's up.  Alerted by the quiet, I looked over to where Max was only to see him watering...in my BEDROOM! 

I shouted., “NO, MAX, NO!  NO HOSE IN THE HOUSE!”  I don't raise my voice often, so Max was frozen with the hose...WATERING MY BED!

I had to weave through my squash and pumpkins, past my tomatoes to get to the stairs to get across the patio to get into the house to take the hose out of his hand and say again, “NO HOSE IN THE HOUSE! “   My neighbor, Cheryl Kelly, was in her backyard laughing at our predicament.  Her nephew, Erik, has Down syndrome and she is a special friend to Max and our family.

The carpet was soaked!  You know, that WHOCK WHOCK sound when you're squishing through the room.  The brunt of the watering seemed to be taken by the box springs.  I was toweling off the carpet only to find a Cole Hahn loafer...full of water.  All things considered, the damage wasn’t too bad...a laundry basket, the floor and part of the bed.  I got the fans out and the windows open.  As most wet things do, the bedroom dried out.

As only our children can remind us, teachable moments are around every corner.  Until the situation comes up, they don’t know about no hoses in the house!

Earth Day & Other Activities!

This week I seem to be playing catch up.  Last week was a whirlwind of activity!  Here are the highlights.

On Thursday, I reconnected with a great friend from college!  Dave and I had lost contact over the years, but thanks to Facebook we recently reconnected!  It had been over 20 years, but we picked up right where we left off.  It was so fun to spend time together and introduce him to the important people in my life...Max and Larry.  Max was a little shy, but enjoyed using Dave's camera!

Friday was Earth Day and I was the guest lecturer at Max's Kindergarten.  We covered some ASL (American Sign Language) signs that had to do with growing things....grow, garden, pea, cup, water, sun, etc.  After that we planted some peas in repurposed containers.  I chose peas because Kindergarten students need some immediate feedback and peas sprout quickly. 

Here are the pea seeds planted in the recycled Mandarin Orange cups.  On Tuesday (yesterday) some of the peas had already sprouted!

When I returned home from the Kindergarten class, I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me....plants!  I had volunteered to be a tester for Burpee awhile back.  Fed Ex delivered a box of live plants, and on Earth Day.  How fortuitous!

In the box were 2 plants of each:  2 varieties (Red Delicious, Costa Rican Sweet) of pepper, 3 varieties (Napa Grape, 4th of July, Early Girl) of tomato and 2 (Sweet Italian, Boxwood) varieties of basil.  I got right to work.

The plants arrived and were strong and healthy looking.  Typically, I grow heirloom varieties, directly from seed.  The row on the left are my own plants.  The middle and right hand rows are the Burpee tomato plants, which are hybrids.  The peppers and some of the basil are in the sunny spot near the tree trunk. 

Here are the black soy beans starts that I transplanted in the big garden.  These were started from seeds from the Bountiful Gardens catalog.  They have a lot of hard to find seeds and all are heirloom.

Here are some peas, started about a week and a half prior that I transplanted.  Let's see how the tomato ladders work as support for them.

Since my cucumber starts keep getting devoured by the snails, I'm trying something new.  I am covering the area in plastic and spreading diatomaceous earth on the plastic.  The back is a support so these cukes can climb.  So far, my cucumber seedlings remain unmolested by the snails.....yippee!

So hope you enjoyed my gardening updates from last week....stay tuned for more.  Enjoy your week!

Cheers~
Marti

Roto-tilling and Other Adventures

Since Max is on Spring Break, here's a short update on my gardening adventures.  My seed starts from last week are beginning to sprout! 

The cukes are the fastest out of the gate!  The white pack on the far left is the pickling cukes, which I plan to make both dills and bread & butter pickles with.

 These are some of our potatoes.  I love this leafy green plant, which sometimes will get white flower blooms.  I know these will be ready once the green portion dies off.

Basic potato strategy is to cut off any eyes that are growing on a potato in the kitchen and plant it in a pot.  This way we pretty much have potatoes year round!

 Here are some carrots in a container.  I also have carrots planted in several other areas.  We love the French varieties, which are short and round.  Purple carrots are also a favorite.

This is one of my SFG (Square Foot Gardening) boxes that Larry made out of repurposed boards from Max's play structure.  The snails have decided to munch on my green beans, so I'm outlining the box with diatomaecous earth.  Theoretically the snails will not cross this line....so far, so good.

This isn't quite a before picture (too embarrassing.....weeds were over 2 feet high before I took them down with the weed whacker) of our back vegetable bed.  It's super hard to plant from seed because although it seems flat, we're on a hill and the slope causes all the seeds to wash into the corner.

So here I am roto-tilling the back bed.  I am lucky that I married Larry.  He has a well stocked garage full of useful tools.  We've had this for quite some time.  When I got interested in gardening on a slightly larger scale, there it was...a roto-tiller, just waiting to be used!  This task would be nearly impossible without the tiller.

And here is the result of the roto-tilling efforts!  Although the tiller isn't hard to use, it really takes a toll on your hands and arms.  They are sore several days after I accomplished this clear out. As soon as my seedlings get a bit bigger, I'll move them up here.

So that's the update on my gardening adventures!  Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your day!

Cheers~

Marti

Growing Some Food in San Diego--Jumping Right into this Blogging Thing!

San Diego is an amazing place. We live on the West side of the San Diego Bay in the Point Loma neighborhood of La Playa and we get about 300 sunny days a year.  It really is paradise.  One of the best things is you can grow food and flowers pretty much year round.  Vegetables take much longer to mature in the winter and spring months, but getting fresh tomatoes in February is a real treat! 

Today I did some work in my front gardens.  I was thrilled to find our first sugar snap peas of the season...a whole 11 of them!   OK, so we ate a few.  They are so sweet and crunchy! 

This also made me realize that it was time to get to work on our main Spring-Summer garden.  We live on a hill, so due to water run off patterns, seedlings do much better than straight seeds.

So to get started on our big garden, I started some seeds that will be transferred into the main vegetable garden sometime next month.  In years past, the birds determined that we had the avian version of "Hometown Buffet" in our yard and I began to wonder why my starts weren't, well....starting.  After I figured out the birds were partially to blame, I came up with this cover to give my seeds a fighting chance.  The white containers are all tomatoes, the yellow are onions an pickling cukes.  The round guys have melons, squash, tomatillo, slicing cukes.

The white containers on the left are tomato seedlings I transplanted from the clamshell mini-greenhouses.  The remaining clamshell mini-greenhouses contain pepper starts and herb (basil, cilantro, thyme) starts.

I am a great fan of reusing and repurposing items, so the clamshells from my Trader Joe's blueberries make the perfect mini-greenhouses.  The tricky thing is to keep them moist enough to germinate and remember to transplant when the seedlings begin to brush the top of the clamshell.  The tomatoes are recent graduates!

This is the edge of one of our vegetable beds.  I love the flax and sweet pea flowers...they are so bright and cheery.  If you look closely, you can see some potato plants in there.  Potatoes and carrots are things we grow pretty much year round.  Generally, I tend to grow potatoes in containers because they're much easier to find.  I don't bother with seed potatoes.  If one of my spuds or a grocery store spud decides to grow eyes, I just cut them off and plant them in a pot.  They have such nice big leaves and when they die off....you have potatoes!


So my first blog post is done.  I hope you've enjoyed reading about my random adventures in San Diego!
Cheers~
Marti