Crafty crates add vintage charm and memorabilia to the garden

Old crates and boxes offer a bit of rustic charm to your garden.  They can used be used inside a screened porch or out on a low patio table. Many crates need no drainage holes and are reinforced with metal strapping, sturdy enough to last several years.  At Flea Market Gardening, we are on the constant lookout for more crates.

Crates are perfect for small gardens, especially,..all you need is a deck, a roof garden, or a bit of sunny space to start your own small crate garden.  I love easy projects that you can do in less than an hour, don’t you?

Shelly’s bright chrome yellow crate

Shelly Trumpulis says, “I had this lying around my basement and needed to do something with it. Works wonderfully for flowers.” What can be more American than Coca-Cola right?

LouJean Bailey’s wooden box vignette

LouJean Bailey picked up a wooden box,  a vine wrapped duck and a birdhouse while out junking at the Flea Markets. Then she went “pasture picking”  for all the goodies to put with them. Crafty crate!

Theresa Doss says. what better way to bring flowers to your friends?”

Debbie McMurry’s sunny yellow crate

Debbie McMurry’s sunny yellow dairy crate holds like-colored flowers

Catherine Lepage’s chippy French door and old crates with flowers

Catherine Lepage’s old crates with flowers. She says, “I collect old galvanized containers and grow lovely flowers in all of them; washtubs, pails, feeding troughs… I will plant flowers in absolutely anything!

Tip:

If you can’t find a crate, make one with 2×4 boards and a screen bottom stapled on.  Screening such as hardware cloth or old window screening would work, too.   If you want, you could find some printed words to print out, cut out a stencil and paint on your own words.  See this post for help making the wording.

Jessica Eiss-Healthcoach’s cleverly planted crate on a trunk

Jessica says, “Million bells and bacopa filled wooden box. Both of these are new additions this year”

Creating a crate container assemblage

Kim Trudo shows the materials she used for her crate creation

Kim White Trudo shows A cigar box, a rusty spring (thanks Marie Nieman) a bird nest and broken egg?

Kim Trudo’s finished table decoration

Kim White Trudo says,  Here is my finished project, pretty simple but it is something green to get us through til Spring!

Cindy Schroeder’s 60s wooden soda crates

Cindy Schroeder tells us, “I’ve had these wooden soda crates from the 60s in my garage for over twenty years. Finally, I decided what I wanted to do with them.  After lining them with landscape fabric I screwed them together, planted them all with succulents, and added some caster wheels! All the succulents are winter hardy for our Zone  4 garden.

How To: Create a Repurposed Wine Crate Planter

• Drill drainage holes if needed
• Paint with Thompson’s Water Seal to preserve wood at its present stage
• Staple on landscape fabric to hold the soil
• Add soil and plants!  Your vintage soda crate is a happy addition to your garden!

Kirk Willis’s pine cone crate

Kirk tells us, “For the star, I used some old blades I had that I picked up at a farm auction. Do you know what kind of blades those are?  they are sections for a sickle bar mower( for cutting hay. ”

Nell Stelzer’s ‘Old Suburban Soda’ crate

Nell says, “I remembered a small watering can I had in storage. I added some “water drops” from an old chandelier (below) and now have more “art” in the garden!”

Nell’s crate in the garden

Jeanne Sammons’s ‘Robert’s Dairy Company’ crate with pansies and vine spheres

For more ideas on Flea Market containers, see : Get the dirt on growing in Flea Market containers