Vertical Herb Garden

I love herbs, but some of my favorites can be quite invasive in my garden beds. I have grown some in individual pots, but I came to the conclusion that I liked too many herbs to grow them ALL in their own pots. I decided that I wanted my herbs together in one place but NOT taking up a lot of space in the process! I had seen photos and read a little about vertical gardening. Seemed like a good solution for a herb garden! I had also seen a photo of a simple wood pallet used in vertical gardening. Not quite what I wanted as the slats were too close together and it had to lie horizontal for several weeks until the roots took hold because there were no individual pockets for each herb to grow in. I mentioned it to my husband and he couldn't quite grasp the concept. I told him to be on the look-out for some wooden pallets. He laughed at the whole idea!

As it turns out .... a few days later, the company he works for was replacing some of the old furniture. And guess what?! The new furniture was delivered on wooden pallets which were destined for the dumpster! My husband remembered my odd request so he brought home 3 of the pallets. And much to my delight, they were exactly what I was looking for!

Here are two photos of one of the pallets. (They were all similar, though one pallet was larger and had 3 rows of pockets instead of 2 rows.)





I sanded them and then painted them with a good exterior wood paint. I decided to use dark brown ... but you could use any color! (This photo shows one pallet that I painted lying on top of a broken piece of pallet while the paint dried.)



My husband made the pallets more secure by screwing all the wood pieces on each pallet together. (They were originally nailed together.)



I had some old vinyl trellises I wasn't using, so he measured and cut them to fit the bottom of each herb box and secured the trellis sections with screws.



We then used the post hole digger to sink four 6' 4 X 4 posts into the ground to about 4' tall. I chose to make an L-shaped vertical garden. The two pallets that were the same size were placed side by side, facing the south, and the larger pallet was mounted facing the east. My yard slopes, so it worked out best that the larger pallet was installed on the incline. I painted the 4 X 4 posts to match the pallets. The next day, my husband mounted the pallets to the 4 posts.





Next came the plant bags. It didn't take me long to come up with the idea of using tarp material. I purchased a cheap tarp that I cut up to make each grow-bag to go inside each plant box. Each box was a different size, so I had to carefully measure each box length, height, and width and draw it out on the tarp before cutting. I used a stapler to secure each tarp pocket, cut drain holes along the bottom, and laid weed barrier cloth down in each pocket to keep the soil in place.







I was almost done! Now came the fun part .... I added a good potting mix and some hydrated water crystals to each shallow tarp pocket. When the prep was done, I had the pleasure of planting 14 herb plants! Note: A little garden trick I do if you have wildlife that likes to dig in your garden or containers .... I cut chicken wire to place around the plants to keep the squirrels from digging them up!





A month after building my vertical herb garden, I created a mulch path in front of that area. I added 3 white rectangular planters on the ground below each pallet, where I am growing some swiss chard, marigolds, and dianthus. I also added a container of bell peppers in the southwest corner of the vertical garden. Feeling like I still needed something else in that area, I added another 4 X 4 post next to the vertical garden where I now have two hanging flower baskets and an old mailbox mounted. I use the mailbox for storing some of my garden tools, a pair of gardening gloves, and some scissors to cut the herbs when I need some for cooking! The vertical herb garden is also a garden room divider (sort of like a fence). Behind the vertical garden is a seating area and a butterfly/hummingbird garden area. The vertical garden is serving more than just one function! I absolutely love it!






My husband was quite impressed with my crazy idea when everything was all done! He no longer questions my requests for unusual materials and supplies. And the best thing of all .... when you repurpose items, such as the wood pallets, it keeps them out of the landfill (which is where my pallets were headed), and they were FREE!!!!

This is a link for more information on how and where to obtain wood pallets:
http://recycling.about.com/od/...

Check with furniture stores as many shipping pallets are custom made (for all the different styles and sizes of furniture), and they may be thrown away afterwards. Some are destroyed or damaged during the unpacking of furniture, which did happen to some of the pallets, but some were left intact. My husband asked and was told they were headed for the landfill, so he was welcome to take whatever he wanted. Just be sure to ask first!