Pedestal Peppermint Patch Planter

Peppermint tea is very nice, but I don't like shopping, so I decided to grow my own.

Peppermint is very easy to grow, but spreads like a weed and takes over the entire garden, so I decided to make a wooden planter to contain the peppermint and prevent it spreading.

Just to make things more interesting, I decided that I would use an old pallet as the material, and would not allow the use of any new nails or screws and would restrict myself to using glue.

One pallet
Simple hand tools
Glue
Paint
Plastic sheeting
Potting mixture
One peppermint plant

I found a huge pallet available at the local industrial estate. It was far too large to fit into my little car, but I sawed into the two pieces shown in the second photograph above, which did fit. Apart from the four feet which hung out the back of the car, but I made it home safely.

This long pallet had four cross stringers made from 2"x4" (50mm by 100mm) so as shown in the third photograph, I sawed through the boards to give a section roughly one third of the length of the original pallet.

As shown in the fourth and fifth photographs above, I measured and marked the half-way line on the 2x4s and then sawed through to give two pieces each with three boards and about eighteen inches of 2x4.

I selected which way round would give nicer-looking boards, and then cut away the unneeded boards as shown in photographs six and seven.

The remaining pieces were tidied up using a small crowbar as shown in photographs eight and nine.

The end results are the two sides, complete with legs, as shown in the first photograph.

Using one of the boards which had been cut off, I measured and marked a one-inch strip and then sawed that off as shown in photographs two and three above.

These strips were glued and clamped onto the inside of the lower board of each side, as shown in photographs four and five.

Once that had cured, other boards cut from the pallet were stacked and marked up at the length to give a ten inch (250mm) width to the planter as shown in photograph six.

They were then sawn, glued and clamped as shown in photographs seven, eight and nine.

Once that had cured I cut boards to make the floor of the planter, and then glued them down onto the rails as shown in photographs ten and eleven.

The end result is the glued together frame with the glued in support rail and the glued in floorboards as shown in the first picture above.

Since outdoors is horrible and wet and windy and cold, and since pallets are generally made of very poor quality wood, I protected the planter with two coats of a good fence paint, which had been formulated to protect rough-sawn timber from the weather.

I first applied several coats to the base of the legs then applied two coats to the whole thing.

Peppermint apparently likes "wet feet" which is good news as it meant that i did not have to bother about providing drainage to the soil (dirt) and also did not have to worry that the plant would attempt to propagate through said drainage.

I bought some thick plastic sheeting from a local garden centre and cut a piece which was slightly oversized (photographs one and two).

I took everything to the intended location, pressed the plastic into approximately the correct position and then emptied a bag of potting mix into it, as shown in photographs three and four.

A little helping hand was used to spread the compost evenly and make sure that the planter was filled right to the corners.

Then I took the purchased peppermint plant, dug a small hole in the compost and planted the mint as shown in photograph seven.

When everything was settled down I used a very sharp knife to cut the plastic sheeting to the level of the top of the planter as shown in photograph eight.

A top-down view of the plant is shown in the ninth photograph above, while the same shot taken three weeks later shows the mint having made itself at home and already begun to send out suckers to expand.

The plant is supposed to enjoy partial shade, but is in full sun at the moment. The size of the planter means that I should be able to move it to a more sheltered location before the winter storms arrive, but until then it shall enjoy all the sun it can handle.