When I was in Michigan a few months back for a little bit of R & R. In the backyard of my buddy’s house, he had converted a bunch of old pallets into three side-by-side composting bins. So after a few beers and some meat smoking, it got me to thinking about the large pile of pallets just sitting at the end of driveway that I never bothered to dispose of (it was more like I felt bad throwing away good wood, so that’s why the pallets were really piled up.) In that instead of using the pallets for a compost bin, that maybe I could grow potatoes in them instead.

So here’s the plan. After doing a bit of counting and calculating of the materials that I already had on hand, I ended up with only enough pallets to make two open sided bins, with one pallet left over. For some reason the pallets I had on hand were not all the same size (which I didn’t realize until later), but more or less they measured around 40″ x 48″. I ended up orientating the pallets so that the enclosure was 40” high, since I really don’t need the bins very high for growing potatoes.

After giving my yard a quick scan to pick out a location for this experiment, I ended up only moving the pallet pile to the other side of the fence for two reasons. 1) That spot in my driveway is the sunniest in the whole yard, due to its orientation (on the south side of the house running east to west), and there are also fewer trees to the west to block out the sun. & 2) Nothing was growing in that location to begin with other then weeds and rocks, so I might as well do something productive with it. I really didn’t do too much to prep the area other then take my propane weed burner and burn out everything in about a 4’ x 8’ area, making sure to give it a good watering afterwards to put out any hidden embers.

So with all the prep work done, on to the soil mix to fill up the bins. The mix I used for the potato bin was more or less 50% compost and 50% peat moss mixed up in a wheelbarrow. I also mixed in a handful of pelletized 10-10-10 fertilizer, as well as about 5 to 8 fluid ounces of limestone (to counteract the acidity of the peat moss.)

When I was talking to my farmer neighbor about the potato bins that I was setting up, he ended up giving me a whole plastic bag of red fingerling seed potatoes to test out in the bin, which is in addition to all the Burbank seed potatoes that I already had sitting in the house.

So we’ll see if anything pans out of this potato bin. But for this season I’m only going to plant one of the bins with potatoes. Since a single bin ended up being a lot bigger then I realized, and in the other bin I’ll just use it for composting my grass clippings this year. But just in case the potato experiment fails, I sowed in a large handful of Navarino carrot seeds from Johnny’s with the potatoes, so if I don’t end up harvesting any potatoes, at least I might be able to get some carrots out of the bin. We’ll see in the months ahead what develops.

I basically had all the materials laying around the house, it was just a matter of building it. The only thing that I needed to buy for the project was a piece of window screen material (aluminum or fiberglass), which was under $7.00 at Menards. So even if I made this and I didn’t like it, I really didn’t have a lot of capital outlaid for the table.

Honestly, there really isn’t too much to make one of these salad table, though I did change the design slightly in two ways:

1. Instead of wooden legs made out of 2 x 4s, I just used a set of plastic saw horses that I had sitting in the basement.

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2. Since I didn’t need to make a set of wooden legs I only needed three 2 x 4 x 8′ studs for all the salad table pieces, instead of the what the directions listed of two 2 x 4 x 10’ long and two 2 x 4 x 12’ long.

Since I was basically redesigning the table to better utilize eight foot studs, I went with four sections on the table instead of three. If I would have followed the original design with three sections, I would have ended up with a 36″ piece of scrap from one of the eight foot studs, verse a 6″ scrap with four sections. Plus with four section it will give me more space for “side projects.”

With one of those side projects being a holding area for seedlings that I transplanted into white plastic cups. Unfortunately this idea hasn’t worked out as planned (see the hailstorm posts #1 and #2). But minus the hailstorm I can see the benefits of having this salad table sitting outside. I guess the true test will come this week when I actually fill up a couple of sections with potting mix and use it for its intended purpose, growing fresh salad greens.

Outside Links:
Salad table on Martha Stewart’s website
University of Maryland Salad Table Main Site
University of Maryland Salad Table Construction PDF

Then one day while doing some random surfing on the web, I stumbled on the website diyjerky.com and how this person ended up making there own wooden drying frames from cider & vinyl coated chicken wire. Well now this project was back in business! After reviewing how they made their frames, I thought that I could put my own spin on the design. This is how I ended up with pine frames that are glued and pocket screwed together and covered in aluminum screen material. So let’s get building!

The frames are make from two pieces of 1” x 4” x 8’ nominal pine. I started off by cross cutting the 1” x 4” into 18.5” long pieces. From there I ripped strips 1” wide so that each blank would yield three frame pieces. I went with 1” so that the frames would have a little bit more height. I could have just made the pine stock ¾” x ¾”, and gotten four pieces from each blank, but I thought that the extra height would be worth it to me, since each 1” x 4” x 8’ was less then $2.00.

As mentioned above the frames were assembled with wood glue and pocket screws, the finished frame has a final dimension of 19.25” x 19.25”. This way the frames would be slightly smaller then a 20” x 20” furnace filter.

For the screen material, I originally thought of using fiberglass bug screen material. But the more I though about it, the idea of fiberglass being in contact with any foodstuff didn’t sound very appetizing to me. So instead I used plain (bright style) aluminum bug screen material. I stapled the aluminum screen material directly onto the pine frames, using ¼” crown by ½” long pneumatic staples.

The only limitation on the project was the amount of screen material that I purchased at the end of season clearance at Menards. So at this point in time, I’ve only got five drying frames, which should be more them enough. But I’ve got extra wood already cut, in case I need more frames in the future. All I would need to do is just get some aluminum screen material to cover the frames.

With the frames all built, let dry something. First drying project…..basil!

So I thought to myself “I can make a better watering wand.” So I put on my thinking cap to come up with some ideas to make a watering wand. And I kept stumbling on the actual sprayer head itself, since all the wands in the store have special sprayer heads. I did a little bit of searching online, and I found one guy online that made his own watering wand. It turned out good, its just that he already had a sprayer head from a broken watering wand, so that really didn’t help me out since I didn’t have an old watering wand to steal parts from.

Well for some reason a few mornings back. I was spacing out at my desk at work, thinking about the garden. When it just struck me out of thin air, why don’t I just use an old showerhead! I already have a spare one at home, and it would be a better quality head then trying to cobble together a sprayer head from scraps à la “Tony Stark built this in a CAVE!!! With a box of scraps!!!” So now I was off and running, and the watering wand was back on track.

Here are the parts that I used going end to end on the watering wand, with (H) for already had & (B) for had to buy:
1 qty – 3/4″ female garden hose to 1/2″ FIP swivel nut (Watts A-660M;SH-1M)(B)
1 qty – 1/2″ x 10″ Galvanized steel nipple (B)
1 qty – 1/2″ FIP x 1/2″ FIP ball valve (H)
1 qty – 1/2″ MIP x 1/2″ female sweat (Nibco 604 Male Adapter Size 1/2″) (B)
1 qty – 1/2″ x 23″ copper pipe scrap (H)
1 qty – 1/2″ 45 degree elbow (Nibco 606 45 elbow Size 1/2″) (B)
1 qty – 1/2″ x 5.75″ copper pipe scrap (H)
1 qty – 1/2″ MIP x 1/2″ female sweat (Nibco 604 Male Adapter) (B)
1 qty – Delta Shower Head (H)

Here are the tools you’ll need to put it together:
-PTFE tape (I’m using Blue Monster now a days, after upgrading from the cheap stuff)
-A couple of wrenches (channel locks, adjustable wrench or monkey wrenches)
-Soldering supplies (flux & brush, emery paper, 1/2″ twisted steel fitting brush, lead-free solder, and a propane torch)

The total cost, including sales tax for all the parts only cost me $9.43. Which is still less then buying a second rate watering wand, since you can get an el-cheapo one for about $8-$9, but it probably won’t last into the second season.

When putting it all together, I spent a little bit of time before hand to get the assembly order correct, so that everything would be straight upon completion, and here is how I did it.

1) Figure out which way you want the ball valve handle to open (toward you or away from you), after you have the valve orientated the right way. Apply PTFE tape to both ends of the galvanized nipple and thread into the ball valve. While on the other end of the galvanized nipple, attach the garden hose adapter. Tighten both connections down as much as possible.
2) Take the two copper pipe pieces, and on one end of each copper nipple. Clean, flux and solder on the Nibco 604 male adaptors. Allow the joints to cool for a couple of minutes.
3) After the long copper piece is cool, apply PTFE tape and thread onto the ball valve as tight as possible.
4) Clean and flux the 45 copper elbow as well as both copper nipples from step #2. Put all the copper pieces together and align them so that it is 90 degrees to the ball valve handle. Solder that joint up, and then allow to cool a couple of minutes.
5) Before screwing on the showerhead, connect the wand to the garden hose and run some water through the wand. This will help to clear out any debris that might be inside the wand, especially from the galvanized nipple that will more then likely have thread cutting fluid and chips inside the nipple.
6) After flushing out the wand for a couple of minutes, apply PTFE tape to the end of the angled stub, and screw on the shower head and get busy watering your dying plants.

Well it turns out that I built it none to soon. It was pretty hot in June/July, so I’m glad that I finally bit the bullet and got the wand built. Because if I didn’t build the wand, I would probably have a garden filled with half dead plants.