Gymgirl's blog: FALL/WINTER VEGGIE GARDEN 2014-2015: Seed Tray Construction on Day #45

Whew! It's been 10 days, but, here's my latest update.

I left off with harvesting and breaking down three (3) wooden pallets to make seed trays. Spent all day Saturday cutting the pallet wood into 17" pieces (cause most of the slats were less than the 18" I anticipated, so they were cut to the next most logical length...). Once assembled, each tray ended up being 17"x18" (cause I didn't account for the overlap on the ends, LOL!). And, although I could have staggered the overlaps and ended up with a perfectly square box, I didn't wanna have to keep up with the overlaps, LOL! (one in, one out, one in, one out...duh)

After I trimmed all the wood for the frames, I sorted it into piles that were the same thicknesses, since some pieces were lighter weight, and some was nice, thick lumber. Then I remembered I had to also have slats for the bottoms of all the trays, but I had already used most of the lighter weight pieces for the frames. I didn't want to use the thicker pieces for the slats. So, as I went back to the drawing board for an option, I spied all of the reclaimed cedar fence pickets I had lying around for other projects. Viola! The cedar was perfect slat material on several levels:

►First, it's more rot and termite resistant.
►Second, it's lightweight but sturdy (exactly what I was going for)
►Third, it was easy to trim to 17" lengths, without much waste
►Fourth, and most importantly, it was FREE, FREE, FREE!!!

So, I cut 5 cedar slats for each frame, and glued and pin nailed each tray together. First, I tacked on each end slat, then eyeballed the spacing between the remaining slats. It was very tricky shooting the pin nails vertically through some of the pieces without them coming out the sides, so, several times I had to remove a protruding nail and try, try again...

But, I did it! I made four trays last night, enough to start onion, beet, lettuce, and spinach seeds.

I thought I should stain the trays with some wood preservative, but, pallets are a dime a dozen, and I enjoyed the carpentry practice making them, so I probably won't bother. If I get three good seasons out of these trays, I'll be more than happy to make more!

Hugs!

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