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| recycled pallet potting bench |
At Sun Ministries, we have a woodshop inside the Opportunity Center, where we make stuff out of recycled pallets. We've been doing it for about 2 years now, and we've made some cool stuff. The idea behind the Opportunity Center is that we gain skills to make things, and sell them to fund the ministry. This helps us be sustainable, and also gives us valuable skills that we use elsewhere in the ministry, and that we can teach to people.
Something we made recently was this potting bench. This is the third potting bench we've made. One is with a gardener in the Central West End (who runs the garden that received our recycled pallet pergola) and the other one is just up the street with a great gardener in the neighborhood, Martha. Martha actually gave us the idea because she asked us to build her one.
This was designed by our executive director after looking at some examples online. It is pretty basic, but sturdy, and shows our limited amount of equipment at the time. The joints are all lap joints, made by cutting dados on the table saw. This time, we used the band saw to cut some of the dados.
We covered it with two coats of deck stain to help protect it from the elements. Our pallets are made of untreated wood, so it's a little more vulnerable than chemically treated pine.
So what is a potting bench for? As its name suggest, it's for potting plants. Generally, it's a nice surface to mix potting soil, which is different from the soil in your garden bed. This can either be the stuff you put in potted plants, or the stuff mixed for seedlings. Which is yet another purpose: a great outdoor surface for preparing your seedlings. Also, people use them for handy storage of planting containers, gardening tools, and watering cans. Some fancier ones have screens for sifting soil and/or sinks for washing harvested vegetables. Overall, they are just a convenient table-height work bench for all sorts of garden chores.
