How To Make A Pallet Into Vertical Garden

Our house is mostly shaded by beautiful large oak trees. This spring, I was on the prowl for how to optimize areas of sun in our yard to grow some herbs, strawberries, and vegetables at an affordable cost. Here is how to make a pallet into a vertical garden.

I love our house and yard, but I really miss having a vegetable garden. Our old house had 1 tree in the yard. It was perfect for a garden. There was sun all over our yard!

I had a large garden and did a lot of canning. I loved it! This house is exactly the opposite… the only area of our house that gets good sunlight is right in front of our house, which is great for staying cool but not so great for growing fruits and vegetables.

I tried a few different spots in the yard to grow vegetables hoping that the small amount of sun those spots had might work ok. But with the lack of sun, I didn’t have much success. The plants grew some but didn’t really produce anything.

I am happy I finally found a way to optimize the small sunny area of our house to grow some fruit and vegetables. It certainly isn’t enough to can, but it’s at least something!

This project was easy to complete and other than waiting for it to dry, it really didn’t take me long. It only took about 15-20 minutes to drill the holes and attach the hose clamps to the pallet. If you are looking for a way to make a vertical garden on a budget, I would recommend trying this!

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Here are the supplies you will need:

1. Pallet
2. Stain color of your choice (I used stain from the deck that I had at home. So that was free)
3. Titanium Drill Bit (a regular drill bit will not work. Trust me. I tried)
4. Hose clamps (I found them at our local hardware store for $3.99 each. I used 8 but you could do whatever number you want. Just make sure to leave enough space between each pot for the plants to grow)
5. Pots (I found all 8 of them at the dollar store and painted them white with an outdoor paint. A couple of them need a small touch-up, but they have sustained several nasty storms and held up pretty well). Each pot was $1.25. I would recommend getting the pots first and then finding hose clamps that fit the pot. The clamps are adjustable to some extent.
6. Screws to attach the hose clamps to the pallet. I just found some wood screws that we already had at our house.
7. Drill

How To Assemble:

1. Paint Pallet-
   • I did 2 coats to make sure it had good coverage.
   • Make sure to let the stain dry completely between coats. I let the pallet dry for a full 24 hours before attaching the hose clamps.
2. Paint Pots
   • I painted the pots so they were all white, but if you like the color of the pots, you could really skip this step. This step took me several days as I painted the pots with chalk spray paint initially but that flaked off. So I scraped off the chalk paint and used outdoor paint on the outsides and the top inch or two of the inside of the pot. I used a paint brush and put two coats on. I let the pots dry for a full 24 hours before doing anything with them.
   • I would definitely recommend using a durable outdoor paint.
3. Pre-drill holes in the hose clamps–
   • Make sure to use a titanium drill bit. This takes a bit of force to get the holes… but trust me, if I can do it, you can do it! I actually had to find a video of this on youtube to make sure I was doing it correctly.
4. Next, Measure out where you want each pot–
   • Find the spot you want each hose clamp to go and then mark the spot with a permanent marker.
   • Make sure to take into account the side of your pots when doing this.
   • Also remember to leave room for the plants to grow between each pot as well.
5. Then, Attach hose clamps to the pallet–
   • Using the drill and wood screws, attach each hose clamp to the pallet.
6. Fill your pots with dirt and plants/seeds.
   • I put parsley, cilantro, green beans, and strawberries in my pots. So far they are all doing well.
7. Place pots inside of hose clamps.
   • I have 2 different sizes of pots (as the dollar store didn’t have enough of the same size). So I did have to use a screw driver to adjust the hose clamps to fit my pots properly.

I propped the pallet up against the corner of our porch and the front of our house. At first, I had it at a slight angle and it tipped over in the wind. I angled it a bit more and so far it’s sustained several very windy storms.

This vertical pallet garden has helped me to take advantage of the little sun our yard gets and get some fresh strawberries, herbs, and beans. Plus it was a fun project to complete.

This project worked out well and I have gotten many compliments on it! Hopefully it works out well for you as well. Please let me know if you have questions about it. I would love to see pictures of a pallet you have transformed.

If you enjoyed this post, check out How To Refinish An End Table.