A Salad Table

A couple of weekends ago, I found a huge left-over pallet from when we had some siding delivered, and it inspired me to use it to build a salad table. I saw this post at Apartment Therapy, and I knew that's how I wanted to plant my greens this year. Salad tables are great for plants that have shallow roots, they keep most pests out, and because the soil and plants are up at table height, they're easier to keep weed free! I'm glad that these greens won't be taking up valuable soil and space in our garden bed this summer. We have a TON of lumber in our backyard, most of it salvaged from our remodeling projects, so aside from the metal mesh and landscape fabric, we had everything we needed in our backyard. While this salad table isn't nearly as pretty as the first one pictured here, it was practically free and most important to us- we pieced together what we already had on hand, using materials that would have otherwise gone to waste. The table ended up being about 12ft long and 2ft wide, which worked out great for planting a big portion of our plants, and the ones that needed more space (cabbages, brussel sprouts, etc.) went in buckets down below.

I initially planned to have Josh write a step-by-step of how he built this, but let's just say he took some...creative?... freedoms that you probably don't want to copy. :) These instructions are really easy to follow, from what I can tell, and they were the ones I planned on following. We used landscape fabric instead of the fine mesh, since we needed some for our yard anyway.



One thing Josh added that I highly recommend is using a small piece of pressure treated lumber at the very bottom of the legs so they don't rot out over time. I think I'll round up some more 2x4's and a sheet of plywood and make a shelf under the plants so I can use it for storing empty pots, hand tools, and other junk. I might be a little too excited about this table, you guys!