Put the Straw in Strawberry

I was feeling a little weekend-warrior-y so I decided to try and build a strawberry planter box out of a pallet that I got (read: stole) from work, for free! 

I started with a pallet that had nine boards on it, and cut out the middle three with a hand saw.

Then I attached the two end-pieces of the pallet together using some old bed slats we had laying around. The bed slats make up the short sides of the box, and I just screwed them into the 2x4's of the pallet using deck screws.

Frame: done!




Then I had to figure out what to do about the fact that this untreated wood was going to be in contact with a lot of soil. How can I seal it so that the wood lasts but not using anything that isn't food safe? I couldn't find any great options, so I decided to just get some deck stain and paint the exterior of the box, while leaving the interior "raw" so that the stain isn't in direct contact with the soil that will hopefully be producing strawberries some day!

I went with this pale pink color because I thought it would contrast well with the green leaves of the plants I fill it with.




Then, I covered the interior with a layer of landscaping fabric/weed blocker to help hold the soil in. My plan was to use something that would keep soil in, but be easy enough to cut through in order to plant some strawberries in between the slats on the faces of the box. So this material seemed to do that job.

Next step was to fill it with soil, some compost, and plant it up!

It took me about 3.5 bags of raised bed mix to fill this bad boy. I added in a bag of compost because I read that strawberries are heavy feeders. Then I planted it up with four different varieties of strawberry and some snap peas! I'm trying the whole companion planting thing, we'll see how it goes.

 Oh, then I added straw! Turns out they're called STRAWberries for a reason! The traditional way of keeping dirt and bugs off the pretty red fruits was by mulching around the plants with straw. Some also swear that straw keeps slugs and snails away, which are known enemies to many strawberry gardeners. Hopefully this works!