One Man’s Trash…

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were on our way home from the grocery store when we saw a pile of fence pickets lying on the sidewalk with a “free” sign on them. I like getting free materials to play around with, but I honestly feel a little weird grabbing up my neighbor’s discards. Heather, on the other hand, has no such hang ups.

We went back with the truck to abscond with the pickets only to find that they were actually Trex fence pickets. Trex is a product made from recycled milk jugs so it is completely rot resistant. Trex is also very expensive. In all there were 16 pickets in the pile and we took them all. I knew right away that they would be perfect for making outdoor planters.

I have recently seen many 3-tier planter projects on various Youtube channels and I like the look of them. All the one’s I saw however, were made with triangular planter boxes and designed to hold flower pots. I wanted to plant herbs so I opted for deep, rectangular boxes.

The boxes are 30in long, 8 in wide, and 10 in deep. Each box used 2.5 of the Trex pickets and about half a 2x4. Almost all of the wood and screws were left over from other projects, in fact, I only had to purchase 3 2x4’s to complete the project. I lined each box with landscaping plastic to keep the dirt in and let the water out.

I filled the boxes with a good quality compost and planted a variety of herbs - Cilantro, Mint, Oregano, Sage, Parsley, thyme, chives, and 2 types of onions. I can’t wait for them to start growing.