Pallet boards

[Beekissed]

We do the same. I've used pallets in so many ways here, so it's the gift that just keeps on giving. I'll be using some for walls on wood shed and sheep pen unless a better material becomes available.

 

[flowerbug]

Do you find that the native worms tend to crawl out of your bucket? Any issues with introducing unwanted insect pests when bringing worms/soil back into your house? I had a massive crawl off with native worms one year. It was pretty gross. Thankfully, the bucket was in my garage at the time! My recent supply is a combination of native reds that were collected from a cardboard layered area in my garden, and several lone survivors from casings of cultivated reds (bucket froze). These guys behave themselves very well. Have not harvested castings since initial set up. Need to do that some time!

haha, worms... love questions, sorry to side track (not really )...

yes, worms will crawl out if they are not covered. i use a fine mesh over the buckets (you can use an old t-shirt without holes in it - cheesecloth is not a fine enough weave and worms will crawl through it) to keep the worms and bugs in or out. if you can source buckets with lids usually there is a rubber ring in the edge of the lid as a gasket. that also makes a good rubber band to hold down the mesh cover. i wish we had an entire basement to work with but it is a not to easy to reach crawl space (which is actually nicer heat and air conditioning than the house because the furnace/AC is down there). we joke about having my brother come live with us and him being down there... i could live down there too. i've lived in an attic before without issues...

the fun thing i had this season for the first time was i had some crickets in the buckets including what i think was a mole cricket which would sing to me. it didn't bother me and if it got a bit loud at times i'd just put the blanket over my ear and that was fine. it was fading away about a month ago and i had finally gotten to that bucket in the feeding rotation and so i disturbed it or killed it accidentally (i was not able to find it when i started to isolate it when feeding the worms so it may have gotten buried too deeply to recover).

i have found many different kinds of creatures in the buckets besides worms for sure because a part of the bucket ecosystem is based upon detritus/partially decayed wood chips and humus from outside. i have had population explosions of fungus gnats so bad that i have had to take buckets outside before opening them as it would not be a good thing to have thousands of those released into the house. some fruit flies and other flies, various other bugs, roly polys, millipedes, centipedes. to combat the small flying bugs i have found some tiny tiny spiders which help. i've been trying to introduce these spiders to all the buckets they are proving to be so helpful, but with limited success so far. i think i have 3 or 4 of the 12 buckets with those now. spring tails, etc.

i do not work to separate the worms from the castings. when i take the buckets out in the spring i just scoop some of each layer of a bucket into another bucket as i am putting the bucket into the garden so i will restart a bucket using the whole system i have in place. the worms that get put into the gardens mostly die (they are conditioned to the bucket and not the more harsh conditions of the garden soil). the non-natives will die off and the tiny natives will survive, but not as many as will survive in a bucket. then the cycle starts again as i bring in a partial bucket of garden soil/clay/sand and then that is topped with a layer of detritus/partially decayed wood chips and humus which gradually get mixed into the bucket as i keep feeding the worms the cooking scraps, paper scraps, bean pods, etc. i want to encourage the broadest diversity as i can in the buckets and in the gardens so this is a way of doing that and it really is working. i do have fungal issues from our location and soils but the worms and all the bacteria they generate (along with their own fungal companions) seem to help moderate that in the gardens as i keep amending each year. alas i don't have enough buckets to completely redo entire gardens, but about 100-120 lbs of basically free fertilizer/prime garden soil each season is a great resource and i have a lot of fun seeing what happens in each bucket through the years i've been keeping them. i have studied how various things are broken down or rot (bones, rolled up newspapers, pieces of wood, etc.). nothing gets wasted here if possible. though Mom is not as tight as i am about this.

i've also learned what not to do... mistakes have happened. that is what experimenting can be like...

like i learned after i'd already put night crawlers in some buckets that they really were not well suited for that so eventually i released them into the gardens where now i do keep finding them and their large burrows. i found one cocoon from them (there is a picture of that and the comparison of size between them and the other worm cocoons i was keeping on the worm page on the website).

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

We do the same. I've used pallets in so many ways here, so it's the gift that just keeps on giving. I'll be using some for walls on wood shed and sheep pen unless a better material becomes available.

I have a neighbour that knows a lot of carpentry... Initially, he made me a very beautiful dog house... and there's a lot of pallets left... so he made me a new birdhouse near a drinking fountain... thank you very much...

 

[Daisy]

What a score! I love working with pallets, the wood is light and easy enough for me to manoeuvre alone.

Raised beds in the garden?

This was my plan when I moved here, but so far I have only been able to get my hands on 2 So one is being used as low garden edging as I build the soil up, and the other might be for this idea-

I tacked a pallet to the wall, and use it to hold all of my shovels, rakes, and long handled tools corralled neatly.

What a great one, thanks for that

How can you tell if they are treated? I don't think the ones I have are, they are natural colour/smell and splintery.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

@Daisy, In the US, if pallets are heat treated, you will find HT stamped on them somewhere. The stamp may be very light, but it will be there. I make it a point to never bring home a pallet unless it bears the HT stamp.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I guess my answer won't help you much, b/c you are not from around here! And, most likely, your pallets will be made from different wood than is used here. Perhaps you can ask at your local hardware/box store?

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

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What a score! I love working with pallets, the wood is light and easy enough for me to manoeuvre alone.



This was my plan when I moved here, but so far I have only been able to get my hands on 2 So one is being used as low garden edging as I build the soil up, and the other might be for this idea-



What a great one, thanks for that

How can you tell if they are treated? I don't think the ones I have are, they are natural colour/smell and splintery.

we made a hanging cabinet using pallets. its a great addition in my kitchen. and its very easy to clean and paint. I love our new cabinet.

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

We just found a pallet company not too far from us where we can get pallets loaded with their scrap. The one we got today was loaded about 4 ft high with boards that are half inch by 4 inch wide. 2-3 foot long. I am going to use a lot of them for building rabbit and chicken pens. But could use ideas for other uses for them. We can also get 2x4 about the same length. No nails so we can use the scrap for kindling.
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can you guys share some more Ideas for pallets? I really have a lot of spare pallets that we can alter to create a lot of useful stuff..

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

We just found a pallet company not too far from us where we can get pallets loaded with their scrap. The one we got today was loaded about 4 ft high with boards that are half inch by 4 inch wide. 2-3 foot long. I am going to use a lot of them for building rabbit and chicken pens. But could use ideas for other uses for them. We can also get 2x4 about the same length. No nails so we can use the scrap for kindling.

Standing Garden, guy. Because of the space between each slat, it's easy to pack plants to make a beautiful standing greenhouse, a coffee table, a book shelf or a toy bin, a shoe organizer, a swing, a wine bar, a pallet lamp, a pallet pathway.