Building A Pallet Fence

Although I love my newest vegetable garden, after spending most of last season fending off hungry rabbits, curious geese, and one very greedy turkey, it became clear that I needed to replace its temporary fence with a more permanent one--and this one had to be varmint-proof.

 

I love the look of the pallet fence I built around my older garden, and I especially love the cost--a whopping $7! And that was for the screws and a fence post.  The pallets were free, and any boards I used came from our scrap lumber pile.  The fence isn't perfect, but since nothing else around here is either, it fits in just fine.  You can imagine after building that first garden fence so inexpensively, I had no desire to spend a lot of money on this second one.  And thanks to my resourceful Uncle Curt, my dedicated dad, my handy husband, and my sweet son, I didn't have to. 

Since Uncle Curt seems to have an endless supply of pallets (and anything else you could ever think to need), his house was where I headed first.  My dad brought his truck and trailer, and as soon as we pulled in the driveway Curt hopped in his bobcat and headed down to his massive pallet pile.  He wasted no time loading Dad's trailer, or maybe I should say overloading Dad's trailer, with stack after stack of pallets.  The higher the stack grew, the more worried my cautious dad looked.  Or vice versa, since I got the feeling that the panic in Dad's face only spurred that ornery Uncle Curt on.  It was quite comical actually, and only ended when my dad finally reached the breaking point and began wildly waving his arms while nervously shouting, "Enough!".  Curt killed the engine, grinned mischievously, and then innocently asked, "What do you mean?  I can get twice that many more on there!".  Dad shot him a sideways glance, Robert Redford-style, and quietly reached for the strap ropes. 

After a precariously slow and wobbly trek home, we unloaded the pallets by the shed, where they could wait for me until I could find time to put them to use.  That time finally came just before Christmas, when our activities were finally winding down for the year.  One sunny December morning while cooking breakfast, I told my husband that I intended to get that fence built before the sun set in the winter sky.  Ok, maybe I didn't say it quite that poetically, but you get my point.  Later, as I headed outside toward the garden, lost in fence-building thought, I was startled to discover my husband and son busily working away, with two sides of the fence already constructed!

How wonderful!  And thoughtful...and helpful.  I wish all my chores went like that.

Although I adore my family, they do have other demands on their time so there's a fat chance of that happening very often.  But in this particular case, here's how this one did.  (Happen, I mean.):

Geoffrey carried the pallets down one by one and laid them around the perimeter of the garden, and William carried the fence posts down two by two and laid them by the pallets.

Then Geoffrey stood the pallets up, boards running horizontally, and drove a post down through the slot between the boards of every third pallet or so.  The corners got two posts each, because they're special.  And also they require special support to handle pressure from two sides.

For those pallets without a post, he wired them to their neighbor, creating a sturdy line of fence that would protect my plants and even corral livestock if I chose to use the area that way.

The finished fence took only a few hours to build, if that, and it cost me about $20--the bulk of which was spent on the fence posts.  I know that's more than double what I spent on the first fence, but I'm not upset.

I'm thrilled, actually.  For twenty dollars I got my garden protected and ready for spring, I gained a nice addition to my homestead landscape, and I got to spend quality time working with beloved family members.  I'd say I got quite the bargain--a priceless one at that!

Now all I need is a gate...after all, a fence is only as good as its gate!  Or something like that.