Home-made Indoor Pallet Wood Trellis Planter Part 2 - The Trellis

Trellis is something that we always seem to need a lot of in our garden and it is often expensive and sometimes not very well made. 

When our first lot fell apart we found quite a handy alternative in the faux astragals in the double-glazed units we salvaged from a joiners. This however, has now finally rotted and I thought it would be a good idea to make our own from our plentiful supply of pallet wood. Having made this for the planter, I will now go on to make some more for the garden including an arbour in which we can eat, without the risk of marauding chicks.

The trellis back to the planter was so as to provide a structure up which climbing plants could grow and provide us with more space for growing food indoors. Furthermore, it gave the planter a more 'furniture'-like appearance. We were just in time in getting the plants in from the greenhouse, the aubergines were already touched by the first frosts.

Once again, I used pallet wood planks, Unlike with the planter  I did not plane the faces of the wood. Instead I used a circular saw to cut the wood into  21mm-22mm wide strips. I selected the width so as to obtain the maximum number of strips with little or no waste. I usually obtained four strips per plank.

These strips were secured to an outside frame which provided stiffness to the trellis and provided a means of attaching the trellis to the rear face of the planter. The frame uprights and bottom were cut to about 36mm-37mm (1.5") width and the top portion was cut to 50mm (2").

I decided the bottom of the trellis (the 36mm piece) would rest on the top edge of the planter so that this piece would support the weight of it and any vegetation. The screws used to attach the trellis would not, therefore have any excessive shearing stress placed upon them.

Constructing the trellis.

The uprights of the trellis were to extend to the floor. The uprights were placed onto the workbench, the overall width was the planter rear wall width. The lower trellis edge was laid onto the uprights at a distance of the planter height from the bottom end of the uprights. The wider top trellis strip was laid at the top end of the uprights and the whole arrangement was checked for squareness. These frame pieces were then joined together with two staples at each corner. I found that the staples were not sufficient to hold the structure rigidly enough, but were adequate for a temporary 'tacking'. The corners were then also nailed, the staples prevented the frame pieces from jumping around during nailing. Once these four framing pieces were joined together, the intermediate trellis laths were laid onto the uprights, I used a short piece of wood to set the distance between each lath. The trellis was assembled using an electric stapler (two staples per joint).
 

The laths were then trimmed flush with the uprights.

Without turning the trellis over, the vertical laths were laid into position and stapled to the laths below (two staples per joint). The surplus was then trimmed off.

The lower edge of the trellis was placed onto the top edge of the planter and clearance holes for the screws were drilled through the uprights where they touched the upper and lower outside rails of the base.

I attached the trellis once the planter was in the house.



Now if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film:

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All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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Home-made Indoor Pallet Wood Trellis Planter - Part 1 the Base

Many people complain that pallet wood isn't a suitable material for use in anything but rough and ready carpentry or cutting edge rustic design. I hope this shows that with a little effort, a free and valuable resource can be used to elegant effect.

Introduction

We have three greenhouses in the garden for growing vegetables, none of which are heated. To overwinter our chilli plants, peppers, aubergines, sweet potatoes, ginger and turmeric we decided to bring them into the kitchen and keep them going and growing in this planter made entirely from pallet wood. In addition we also sowed some nasturtiums and lettuce, this to provide some early fresh leaves for salads. The trellis at the rear of the planter gives us an added dimension in which to grow sweet potato vines and nasturtiums .

Preparation

Because the planter was to be in the house all Winter I decided to plane all the wood so it looked more like an item of furniture. Furthermore, I chamfered each plank's edges to make the walls less monotonous. This being so, all the pallet wood was selected and checked for nails. I planed the surfaces with an electric planer. The chamfering was undertaken with a router with a 45° conical bit.

The wall planks, nailed to top and bottom rails were also planed and chamfered. The planter dimensions were 1.07m x 0.41m x 0.39m this latter dimension was chosen so that three wall planks could be cut from one standard pallet plank of 1.20m.

I selected a a long pallet wood plank, to make the top and bottom rails and cut it in half lengthwise. I then planed and chamfered the two rails.

I did the same with the planks selected to make the walls.

Notice that the planks are not the same width.

To ensure the opposing walls were of the same length, I laid the planks out prior to assembly. A little 'shuffling' was needed until this was achieved. Hey, it is free after all!!

The wall planks were nailed to the upper and lower rails and for aesthetic reasons I decided to mitre the ends of these rails. 

To this end, I laid the rail against the edge of the wall and marked the cutting line at each end which was set by the wall length plus twice the rail thickness (one additional thickness at each end).

Once cut (I used a mitre block to guide the saw) the wall planks were laid on the top and bottom rails and were checked for squareness prior to nailing. To prevent splitting at the end of the planks, I pre-drilled the nail holes with a slightly under-sized drill.

When both front and rear walls were made the operation was repeated for the side walls, once again ensuring the planks were shuffled to give the same wall width.

One important point is that the end sidewall planks were offset from the top and bottom rail ends by the thickness of a wall plank so the mitred ends of the walls would meet.

The four walls were screwed together whilst resting on a smooth flat surface.

Four base-support rails were cut and screwed to the bottom of the planter and planks were cut to the narrower dimension of the inside of the planter.

The two base planks which were butted against the end walls were screwed to the bottom rails as illustrated. This was an essential stage in the assembly as this stiffened the whole planter. So as to have the maximum effect, I selected as wide a plank available for this (105mm/4").

The remaining planks were just laid in position without securing.

 

As usual, there was someone on hand to check the progress of the build.

And that's it! In the next post I'll describe how I made and fitted the trellis. You can find it here

 

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All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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