Pallet Garden - the end of the tale

There have been a lot of people reading about my pallet garden effort on this blog, so I thought it only fair to finish the story...

I planted the garden in August last year (which is late winter in Melbourne), and  was in  a bit of a hurry as I was going overseas for a month the first week in September. I left it in the care of my fellow workers in my absence.

When I came back, it was flourishing - but no-one was eating the lettuce, and it was going to seed ! By then it was spring, and the vertical garden was getting more and more sun, it being on a north-facing wall, and needed more and more water, which I couldn't apply becuase it was so leafy and couldn't get the water in.

Then came summer, and it was HOT. The garden was in the sun. Against a brick wall. All day. 12 hours a day.

I gave up.

My advice to anyone planning a garden is this:

You are supposed to leave the pallet horizontal, once you have planted, to allow the root system to develop, and preferably in the right direction. I didn't do this. I planted it when it was attached to the wall. Wrong ! Be patient.

Put it somewhere where it gets a couple of hours of full sun, but not all day. It will dry out too quickly -  in the southern hemisphere, anyway.

If I did it again, I would put a piece or two of garden hose going to various lengths within the planter, so that you could pour water down the hose, and it would be guaranteed to reach the lower levels. Do this when you are filling it with soil.

It was fun while it lasted, but I don't really feel inspired to do it again - at least not in this location.

Vertical pallet garden

My studio is in a very industrial part of town. In fact, it's an old converted factory - very trendy, but very bleak outside. Not a tree to be seen. I decided a little while ago that I would have a try at creating a pallet garden, which could be fixed to the wall, and in which we could grow some salad vegetables for summer.



In theory, they're quite easy to make... find a pallet...line the back with heavy-duty black plastic... fill with soil...plant the seedlings....all this should take place whilst the pallet is horizontal.



Then, after 2-3 weeks, when the seedlings have taken root, you can stand it up and/or fix it to a wall, and just wait for harvest time.

Unfortunately, sometimes I have difficulty with the concept of waiting, and this, coupled with the fact that we didn't really have anywhere to lie the pallet down, meant that we fixed it to the wall before we had even put in the soil !

So, to stop the soil from falling out, I lined the pallet with a hessian sack, put in the soil, and then cut little holes in the sack, and poked the seedlings in.

The picture shows the left side with the black plastic on the back, and some little mint plants on the bottom row, and the right hand side shows the newly planted seedlings. We have, in descending order, lettuce, rocket, coriander and spring onions !

This was planted at the beginning of August. Three weeks later, they have all taken root, and are growing strongly.

I'm not sure about the location: it will get very, very hot in summer, so I might have to think of something else... maybe succulents are the way to go !

Succulent picture from www.countryliving.com, top pic from www.vibrantlivingmagazine.com

You can find the full instructions for making a pallet garden
here. Let me know how it goes !!