DIY Clean Draining Planter Box
by
The Painted Hinge
(IC: blogger)
One thing I've always wanted to do is put all the old grape boxes I have collected and stored in our shop to good use. My hubs and I are both from grape growing families, so I've had no shortage of old grape boxes (not complaining - I know old boxes of any sort can be hard to come by). The problem with these boxes is that if you just fill them up with soil to use as planters, the wood will rot out in only a season or two because of the wet soil from watering the plants. I've tried lining the boxes with plastic, which protects the boxes, but there is no drainage for the plants. And no matter how carefully I water, I always end up over-watering, which results in a bunch of dead plants. I needed to come up with a way to add drainage to the planter box without it actually seeping onto any part of the box.
I figured there had to be a way to line the grape box with plastic to protect it, but have a way to drain the water away from the box so I wouldn't rot out so quickly. That's when I came up with this idea!
Here's what you'll need:
Cut the bottom of the coffee filter. Save the bottom part and compost the top part for your garden.
Use the heavy clippers to cut a hole in the back side of the wood box next to the bottom. Make the hole big enough to stick the plastic straw through it without crimping it. If heavy clippers won't work for you, use a small Dremel or whatever you need to use to cut a hole in the wood box.
Fill the bottom of the box with a couple of inches of the gravel, taking care to make sure the plastic straw on the inside of the box is covered with the gravel. Cover the gravel with a couple of inches of potting soil.
I hope you enjoyed this DIY clean draining planter box tutorial!
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Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Published May 18th, 2016 2:09 PM
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2 of 39 comments
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Melanie Smith on Jul 13, 2016If you put a layer of garden fabric/weed barrier(you know the stuff that goes under mulch to prevent weeds) but lets water thru, over the layer of stone you could get away without the coffee filter. Alot of natural terrariums do this to prevent the dirt falling into the gravel or filter layers.
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Omar on Dec 02, 2016This is so funny we have gotten so many of these from estates. I clean out estates and we get these all the time. I will definitely be repurposing the crates that I got from this estate junk removal http://eco-dumpster.com/junk-removal-estate-l...
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