How to Build a RAISED BED Using PALLETS, FREE Backyard Gardening

what's going on roads change because you only coming to you live from Jersey you want to start a garden and have a nice raised bed but you don't want to break the bank to do it today I'm going to show you how to build your own beautiful raised bed out of free recycled pallets let's do it the first thing we're going to meet our pallets I'm going to be making a 4 by 8 raised bed when it comes to pallets where are you gonna get them that's up to you I found some of them at the local gardening center but then I also went to the local recycling center they let me have as many as I wanted they found it convenient that I was taking recycling and garbage away rather than bringing it in so I'm gonna get all the pallets stacked here then we'll start cutting there's gonna drop this one off leave it here for a minute I'm gonna start with this one what I'm gonna do is just actually cut this pallet up I'm not gonna be pulling all the nails out that's gonna be super tedious and I don't need to do that for the kind of raised bed I building what we're gonna do is just take our circular saw and we're gonna cut all along here and along here well that's gonna leave us is a nice board about 14 to 16 inches long we're gonna do that for all of them hopefully end up with about 50 to 56 boards what I'm going to do now is throw my saw up here and cut this basically as close to the other piece of wood here as I can without hitting any of the nails this doesn't have to be perfectly straight we're gonna make the board straight after this that whole palette has done all cut up you can see what we're left with these boards so we're gonna cut them down to about 12 16 inches whatever works and we're gonna line them all up and this will be the border of our raised bed so you can see it's already starting to come together just a little bit save so much time by not pulling those nails last pallet all cut up all the good pieces at least stack them up over here you can see right here I've got the other ones stacked i've got sets of 10 so i've got six sets of ten that's sixty plus a few additional my mathml that i only need about fifty or fifty-six so let me get to the next step cutting these down we have all those pieces cut and I'll show you you can see that they're not square at all as you can see doesn't line up right it so what we're gonna do to fix that is put it on a drops off so we can take this drop saw set at zero degrees I'm gonna pull it on this side over here because I have something bumped up over there now we're gonna just put it on this side here and I'm just gonna drop it just to trim it to make it square so what that's gonna do is make one side square for me then we're gonna take that square side and bump it up against this piece of wood that I measured and marked this way this side will be square and then it's measured at 16 inches so all I got to do is drop this down 16 each piece both sides square it's gonna be quick and easy we're gonna do that for all the rest there we go all the boards are cut to the same length and square here's all 56 of them stacked up nicely next what I need to do is I'm going to cut some of these pieces in the back so they'll act as bracing and support for these boards so we can connect them all together what I'm gonna do is just take this and rip a piece down I'm just gonna eyeball it doesn't have to be perfect it's gonna be on the inside of the bed so you're not gonna see it just make sure you don't hit these screws here because it'll ruin your blade I was getting a little close to a screw so I stopped I'm just getting cut off here next I have a couple nails in the back I'm just gonna bang those out from behind and this is gonna work conveniently because this piece is almost four feet and that's gonna be one of the lance of my bed so we shouldn't have to cut it get those nails pocketed and then we're gonna take these stack of ten we've shown any nine boards if my math is right to make a four foot wall well have two 4 foot walls and one 8 foot one bring this over right here I have set up just a straight edge and then I have clamps this way they all line up perfectly at the top but they should all be cut even so when we line all of them up the top and bottom should be all even as you could see that's what we want to see some of these may be different widths but that's okay you can put your widest ones at the end so that when you're attaching you have a strong board to attach with that's what we'll do here there's a nice wide board put that at the end the straight edge isn't completely necessary just makes it easy for me to push right up - this one's a little thick this is the end we have all these pieces cut and lined up what we're gonna do is just measure should be 4 feet it's basically exactly 4 feet that's what we want next what we're gonna do is take this brace that we rip down we're just gonna put that on the back pre-drill holes and then screw it all together we want to pre-drill because we don't want any splitting this isn't the best quality wood so we don't want to split it soon we'll seal it and just sink it in do all this brush the same there we go now and pick it up show you what it looks like this is going to be one side of our raised bed as you can see it's gonna look real nice one side we need to do the other three sides and then we're gonna have a cat piece that really locks everything together it's a little wobbly still but there's gonna be one cat piece that ties everything together let's move on to the other sides there we go the second four foot section is done so this bed is gonna be 8 foot by 4 foot instead of making a whole 8-foot section which is gonna be tough to do what I'm gonna do is just make 6 4 foot sections and then take two of them like I have here here's 2 foot to 4 foot sections and then just connect them that's gonna give me an 8 foot section so we'll do it like that so I've got 2 4 foot sections made I need 4 more to make there we go all 6 pieces are done next what we're gonna do is we're gonna actually use some linseed oil and what this is gonna do is gonna help preserve the wood we're gonna put this linseed oil it's gonna help get us hopefully a couple more years out of this wood because obviously it's not pressure treated and we don't want to use pressure treated wood so all I'm gonna do is just brush this off I'll brush this section off then I'm just gonna start painting that linseed oil on so we're gonna put this on pretty liberally just a brush any brush just to get it on there basically pour into here this is just flax seed oil so it's completely natural what we're gonna do is just brush this on very liberally and then give it about 5 or 10 minutes to sink in after we give it that 5 to 10 minutes to sink in then we'll just wipe off all the excess with a rack we're gonna do this on both sides this one side is all finished now I'm gonna flip it to the other side just gonna be super liberal with the flaxseed oil there we go what side is all done both sides done now and then we're just gonna flex see it all at the top or linseed oil all these boards are linseed oil next what I'm gonna do is just measure and cut this whole piece to exactly four feet you'll notice that I'm only cutting off a little bit of the board you want to make sure you have basically full boards you don't want to just have a little bit of a board left if you're gonna have a little bit of a board you want to make sure that's in the center we have all of our pieces cut the four feet now what we're gonna do is take two of them connect them together that's gonna be our one eight-foot side next we're gonna attach this and just linseed oil after is you're gonna just combine the whole thing patch it all together there we go last screw in now we have the two 4-foot pieces attached we got one nice eight-foot edge of the bed now you can see it's starting to come together let me show you how it's gonna look with one of the four four pieces right here with the eight foot piece done and it's looking really nice you can see it's starting to come together we should have to do the one more 8 foot piece then the other 4 foot will bring it into the garden level it fill it start growing here's the section right here where I'm gonna put the bed in now I just want to clear some of these wood chips out and get a relatively level before I start building it in place both those sides are down they look good I have them connected right now just temporarily with this little support these piece right here it's like a little corner piece it helps hold them together when you don't have anyone help you next I'm just going to attach this piece on the inside then I'm gonna use that to marry both sides together so first we're just going to pre-drill now mr. crew from the other side there we go looking nice and take this off and then we're still gonna have one more top piece that's gonna really connect everything together and pull it back all even there you go out sides all tightened same thing we shouldn't take this block put it in and screw to it two sides down let's move to the other here's the fourth side let's give this one in we'll just do the same thing the level put our braces on and then screaming he's our fourth and final side hole in I'll step back a little bit as you can see it's come together nicely and you could leave like this if you wanted to if you wanted the only loot use pallets that's it but I want to strengthen up a little bit more and make it a little more convenient for me so what I'm gonna do is just take a 2x4 I'm gonna linseed oil at first then I'm gonna screw it up to here what that's gonna allow me to do is to line everything up nicely it's gonna strengthen the whole thing and tie it all together here's the top rail the 2x4 just way in seed oil but let it dry now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna attach one side and then the other side and then fix the center if it's both got that all lined up I'm just going to pre-drill on the edge hit that other piece of wood down there there we go beautiful we do this handing it right here and on the other end there's the other corner and now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna work my way down and just pop these out you can say like this middle here I'm gonna put screws in here just so it's all level so I'm gonna do is just make it about flush on the outside it's gonna be nice and flush low on the whole thing some of them that are bowed out like this we'll just fix with the screw there you go that rail is all screwed now what we're gonna do is just measure the distance between these two and those two and we're just going to cut it and that'll be the final top rails we've this top rail cut and linseed oil now we just have to screw it in line it up nicely make sure we pre-drill every odd screws in and now you can see the top rail and you've got a good idea of what this raised bed actually looks like a lot of fun to make still a few things to fix the bow it out just a little bit but overall I'm so happy with the way it came out and I'm not gonna be able do it tonight but tomorrow I'm gonna be out here me and tuck we're gonna fill this baby up we're gonna get some stuff planted it's the next day the raised bed is all finished being built it looks fantastic now we're just gonna fill it up the first thing we're gonna fill it up with this some homemade compost this stuff is basically finished and I have some new stuff in there with it some new greens so we're gonna line the bottom with this it's gonna add some nutrition and stuff but it's also gonna save us some space because that's a pretty deep bed we're looking at about 16 inches here's the first mode we'll put this in some of you mentioned in a previous video that I should build three walls then leave one wall open will barrel it in and then dump it I thought about doing that but it was kind of hard with this build because it wasn't super super sturdy before I put it together this strengthened this came after it was all together so to do three sides at once it just didn't seem like it would've been right for me to get it all level and the way I wanted it let's load this baby in you can see this compost it's gonna really help fill some of that space for us there we go the homemade compost is all in build some space next we're gonna put some black leaf mulch in and this stuff I get for free the pallets I got for free the black leaf mulch I get for free as well from the local recycling center so that's why I was saying in the beginning you don't have to spend a lot of money you don't have to break the bank just go out look for some local resources and try to be thrifty with the way you spend your money to build the bed like this one thing I wanted to show you though as we come in here you'll notice we've got a good amount of bracing in here I've got at the top every every board is connected at the top and we have the bracing down here I don't think I'm gonna get any bowing so I think it should be okay if you want to feel safe about it you could add even more bracing let's get some black leaf mulch in a bunch of this and then we'll add the compost after there we go this is pretty much where I want it for the black leaf mulch next we're going to come through and just put a mushroom compost on top of this so the mushroom accomplishes gonna be great for fertilization it's really gonna grow with some beautiful plants hopefully and this is almost finished let's get the compost in here it is final wheelbarrow I'm loving the way it's come out just a few more scoops on there I think then we'll level this out you can see I'm not shy with how much I put in here we're gonna be growing some fantastic things in here so we'll just level this all out they don't get to the best part start planting soon will be reaping the harvest before we get into planting I just want to show you the math that I used to build this the first thing I did was find the size of one of my boards so I averaged that they were about five and a half inches the next thing I did was choose my bed size so I chose 8 foot by 4 foot the next thing I did was wanted to convert the whole thing to inches so I took my 8 foot multiply it times 12 that gave me 96 inches I did the same thing on the top 4 foot times 12 gave me 48 inches then I added all of them up for the perimeter so 48 inches 48 inches 96 inches 96 inches that gave me 200 18 inches then I divided that by my board size which was about five and a half inches that gave me a little more than 52 boards I averaged up and cut about 56 I think I only ended up only needing about 54 there she is all filled up now we got our seats time to start putting some stuff in it's pretty simple you have a nice raised bed like this convenient we could just lean on the ledge like this sit and then we're just all we have to do is just basically dig into the soil a little bit grab our seedlings whatever one we're gonna plant take some Dino kale here now we'll take some here some cauliflower slide these in if you want more information about plant spacing and how to plant your stuff check out the square foot garden video we just did that'll give you all the info you need we're gonna tuck this baby in bury this stem just a little bit then won't fit out the other one so we only have one planet left there you go that one's all tucked in me and talked to have a lot more that we get the plant and we're super excited about it because we love getting out here getting their hands dirty that's today's video though thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed it hope you got something out of it and I want to encourage you well me and tuck want to encourage you guys to get out there to grow something and no matter how much space you have even if it's if it's huge acreage use it all if you got a small space start a 2x2 raised bed it doesn't matter just get growing if you enjoyed the video hit the like button hit the subscribe button share with your friends don't forget to check out the merch down-low tuck and James move back at you real soon with another one we [Music]

Channel: The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni

Views: 2,265,720

Rating: 4.9354196 out of 5

Keywords: how to, raised bed, pallet, how to build a raised bed, how to build a raised bed using pallets, raised bed garden, raised bed gardening, how to start a garden, david dobrik, hgtv, diy, mr beast

Id: rmgAqYwFFA8

Length: 15min 22sec (922 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/wglmb]

Make sure the pallets are untreated, otherwise they will leach chemicals into the soil.

[u/Doctor__Apocalypse]

Having done this before I found it to be waaaaay more labor intensive then I would care for. I was much happier buying some 1x8x8's and cutting those to size.

Yes the pallets are free but the time, labor and amount of scrap left over just IMO is not worth it IF budget is not the biggest of concerns. Otherwise this is a great, cheap and ecco freindly option.

A issue I noticed with these over the years is the planks love to bow and your first heavy rain will be a good indicator of the quality of your pallet wood.

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks! I enjoyed this!

[u/crusademymind]

Perfect timing, thanks!