DIY Small Raised Fairy Garden Bed

Fairy garden/forest, a year and a half later (see update at bottom of post)

We’ve built several large raised garden beds at our current house (and a guide on how to build one of these will be put up at some point in the future), mostly for our own fruit and vegetable crops. What we haven’t done, however, is create our own fairy garden… until recently.

This is a quick, simple, and generalised step-by-step guide with photos on how to create your own fairy garden amongst a proper (if a little small) raised garden bed containing a few useful plants. The intention is that this can be followed step-by-step as-is, or be used as a “jumping off point” for creating a raised fairy garden bed using (possibly vastly) different materials.

Choosing a Spot

Our chosen spot for the fairy garden.

We recently got a family of ducks and ducklings (this may seem unrelated, but bear with me, it had an impact on where we decided to put this new garden bed). While they’re still getting used to us, learning to trust us, they’re confined to their cage at night, and an outside fenced enclosure measuring about 10 sq. metres with a pond throughout the day. In future though, we’d like to let them be free-ranging on our property during the day.

A few of the items we put (and will be putting in future) in the fairy garden are fragile, and if the ducks wandered through this garden bed on their search for tasty snails and insects, they may accidentally break some of the items.

Of course, they may decide the vegetables in our vegie gardens are too good to pass up, too. As such, we already have plans to fence off the area around the vegie garden before letting the ducks roam free. Due to this, we decided to put the new garden bed in the area which will eventually become fenced-off, and hence become safe from webbed feet.

After this decision, we still had to decide where to place the new garden bed in the area which would become fenced off. We ended up deciding that the garden bed can sit against an old wattle tree to act as its fourth wall, and for added ambiance.

To generalise, choosing a spot should be a matter of finding somewhere not too far from the house (so you can enjoy it easily), and if applicable, somewhere pets are unlikely to find themselves amongst the garden bed if there are fragile items being used for decoration.

What You'll Need

As mentioned at the beginning of this guide, this is intended to be a general guide, including a broad method for how we created our particular garden bed. So I won’t be giving exact numbers and measurements, just the materials you’ll need in general, and the materials we used as a guide.

• Walls. We used old wooden planks from around the property. You can do the same, or find something else to use. Logs, bricks, or even buy some simple untreated planks from your local hardware store if there’s nothing you can use for free.
• Something to hold the walls up. If you’re using thicker materials such as logs or bricks which hold themselves up when under pressure, this may not be necessary. However as we used planks, we used “star-steels” (a.k.a. “star-steel pickets”) to hold the walls up, both for their structural stability, and re-usability over a long time period. You could just as easily use simple wooden stakes, rocks, or anything else to hold the walls up, as long as it’s stable and safe once it’s all put together.
• Soil. As this is going to be a home for living plants (not just the fairy garden decorations), there needs to be something for the plants to live in. You can usually use soil from elsewhere in the garden, but since we live in an area of very poor soil, we had to buy bags of soil from a local Bunnings.
• Plants. We used Lawn Chamomile (a medicinal ground cover no taller than 10cm's, which smells faintly of apple), Wooly Thyme (a ground cover and culinary herb, which is also anti-microbial, and useful as a highly-effective gargle), and Yarrow (a wound-healing herb, which also attracts bees). They are all medicinal in their own ways, and all edible.
• Fairy-themed decorations. Doors, stepping stones, mushrooms/toadstools, whatever you want as decorations. Have fun with this dot point in particular – after all, isn't that the point?

In terms of the plants chosen, you could pick plants which would just look good amongst fairy-themed decorations, plants which are purely functional, or possibly plants you haven’t had room to plant elsewhere. The only advice I might give is to make sure the plants you choose aren’t poisonous, as fairy gardens are a natural place for inquisitive little toddlers to gravitate towards. So safe (perhaps even edible and tasty) plants are a good place to start.

Having a general design in mind before you go out to find your materials may be wise, but that’s not to say that you can’t “wing” the design as you go. If you end up with a rather eclectic design due to no prior planning, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that as long as it all holds together in the end.

Putting it all together

You’ve chosen your spot, you’ve got your materials, and you have some semblance of an idea of how you’d like it all to look at the end. Now comes the fun part: the assembly.

Wherever your chosen location is, the first step is to put up the walls. How the walls go together depends largely on the materials you’ve chosen your walls to be made out of.

Since we used old slats and star-steels, we placed the slats on top of each other and used the star-steels to keep them upright. Note that the star-steels only need to be placed on the outside of the walls – this is because the walls will be held up from the inside by the soil, once it’s been added.

If there are any large holes in the wall, they will need blocking. Small holes aren’t often an issue as once the soil has settled it won’t escape very easily, but large holes have the potential to disrupt the soil and let it escape, especially after a heavy rain.

Whether or not you’ll have big holes in your wall depends largely on the location and materials used for the walls. We chose to place the raised garden against the old wattle because it can act as a fourth wall, and adds an ambiance to the garden bed which would be hard to replicate without it. But its twisted shape at ground level did mean we had to fill in a couple of big holes before continuing to the next step.

Once the walls are up, the next step is simple: Fill the bed with soil.

Whatever greenery you’ve chosen, now’s the time to plant them. While doing so, keep your design in mind so that you’re not displacing where the various fairy decorations were planned to end up.

Place your various fairy decorations in their intended locations.

If you don’t have all the decorations you’d ultimately like, don’t fret, neither do we. We’re planning lots more decorations to go in, and you too can add more decorations to your heart’s content in future. For now however, just place what you have.

You have now completed your own small raised fairy garden bed. Congratulations!

Design changes, and personal touches

This is a very simple design which lends itself nicely to alterations. I’ve aimed this design and these instructions at demonstrating how simple it can be, but fairy gardens are (and in my opinion, should be) highly personal, and/or collaborative with anyone else you’re creating it with. So if you’d prefer to use different materials for the structure, plant different greenery, change the locations or type of decorations, or even just decide to create a much bigger and grander fairy garden bed, go for it!

As for us, in future we’re planning on adding more decorations including (but not limited to) long benches for the table. From there, we’ll add more stepping stones leading to a fairy ring of mushrooms to help complete the current design. Possibly we’ll add stone creatures, possibly we may add other plants in the ground surrounding the bed, who knows?

I’ll try to add another photo at the end of this article, once the coming winter has passed and spring has arrived, to show any progress the plants in the fairy garden have made (not to mention display any additional decorations).

However you go about creating your own raised fairy garden bed, I wish you luck, and I hope you have fun creating it.

(Originally published, by me, on Hubpages.com - 04/04/2015)

Update - 6th November, 2016

Well, it's been about a year and a half, and boy there's been some changes!

Unfortunately, we lost the Wooly Thyme when we were trusting a friend to water our garden for us in summer last year (mentioned in more detail in my Yule over Christmas post), but the Yarrow and Lawn Chamomile managed to survive, and have completely taken off since then.

See the following pictures (and captions) for yourself. We're actually now planning to have the fairy garden path go straight into the yarrow and chamomile, similar to a hidden path off into the forest.

Imagine searching through those plants and finding a hidden fairy path, complete with hidden fairy decorations. I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty appealing to me.

Fairy Forest - front view

Fairy Forest - top view

Lawn Chamomile up close

Yarrow up close

Fairy Forest

DIY Pallet and Wire Compost

Our very simple yet stable new garden compost areas, made from six old pallets and wire.

Need a place to put compost to use in the garden, but only have minimal materials? If you happen to have access to no-longer-used pallets, here’s a dead-simple guide (with pictures) to create two composting areas for your garden, made from pallets and wire (henceforth referred to as Pallet And Wire Composts, or PAWCs).

Note: This design can very easily be extended to creating more than two PAWCs. I wouldn’t suggest just creating one PAWC, however, as having more than one means you can fill one up, then fill the next one up while you use the compost from the first (now ready) PAWC, and repeat ad infinitum.

Choosing an area

Before we get right on to assembling these PAWCs, we need to choose a good spot. An area which is not too close to the house is a good first point to keep in mind, as many animals (especially various insects and spiders) will love the composting material, and places to hide or set up webs in the pallets. And if they’re close to the house, they might decide to wander over to the structure which always seems so warm and lit up during cold nights…

Next up is proximity to where you want to use the compost. This is not as much of an issue, but in general the less moving stuff around, the better (no point maximising your work for no good reason).

We chose to place our new PAWCs on the top of a slope, above and right next to our various raised garden beds for our vegetables, and near much of the rest of the garden. This way, we have relatively easy access to the compost practically anywhere we decide to use it.

The Ingredients

There’s very little to this recipe for PAWC creation.

• Six wooden pallets – absolutely don’t need to be new, but retaining at least some of their original structural stability is recommended. Depending on how many you want to create, you will need six pallets for two PAWCs (as in this guide). If you want to create a different number of PAWCs, you will need three and a half pallets for the first PAWC, and two and a half pallets for each additional PAWC.
• A length of wire – to join the pallets together. The wire should be a minimum width of 1.5mm.
• Wire cutters.
• A wood saw.
• Leather gloves to wear – recommended, especially if you’re worried about accidentally poking yourself with the ends of the wire.

That’s it. Already shaping up to be quite easy, right?

If you don’t have old pallets lying around, try asking your friends, or try asking your local hardware or farming stores. Some sell their pallets off for cheap, and others (like the one we got our pallets from) give them away free.

If you don’t have any of the rest of the required materials (wire cutter, wire, saw), also try asking your friends as a first step. Most people won’t mind lending this kind of stuff. If they do, just invite them around for an afternoon to bring the stuff (to watch over it if they’re that protective), and then share a drink after the project is completed in half an hour.

If you absolutely can’t find any of the items required for free, any good hardware store will sell them for reasonable prices. It’s probably a good idea to have these items if you’re into DIY projects such as this one, anyway.

The Method

One of the six pallets needs to be cut in half, in the same direction as the outside boards. Look through your pallets, and try to find one which doesn’t have a board right along the middle – this pallet will be the one you cut in half. If you don’t have a pallet which isn’t covering up its middle (we didn’t), it’s no issue. Simply choose any of the other pallets, preferably with a gap between the boards as close to the centre as possible.

Cut through the centre pieces of wood to create two halves of the pallet. These halves will be used for the front “doors” of the PAWCs, so that you don’t need to lean over a full-size pallet when the time comes to get the compost out for use.

You should now have five full-sized pallets, and two half-pallets. The next stages can be done by one person, but will be made significantly easier if you have someone else to help you hold the pallets in place.

Creating the first PAWC

Two pallets held upright, forming
the rear-right corner.

Hold a pallet upright with the slats horizontal, such that it will form the right wall. Hold another pallet upright, at a right angle to the first one, so that its edge is touching the rear edge of the first pallet – this will form the rear wall, and together, these are going to form the right-rear corner of the PAWC.

Wire around the two pallet edges.

Beginning at the highest point on the pallets possible, measure out and cut a length of wire such that it can be used to go around the touching edges of the pallets. Pull the wire through the gaps, then twist the wire tightly (at least five half-turns) so that the wire holds the pallets in place.

If there is any extra length of wire sticking out, either cut it off, or bend it back into the pallets.

Wire twisted, to hold the pallets together.

Wire all the way down the pallets.

After wiring the pallets together at the top, at a minimum you should wire the pallets together twice more, for three times total (top, middle, and bottom). If you want to wire the pallets together in more than three places, it can’t hurt.

Three pallets wired together.

The first two pallets are now wired together, forming the right side and the rear. Next up is to add the left side/wall.

Grab one of the other full-sized pallets, line it up with the rear pallet on the left side in the same manner as the right side pallet, and wire it together as per the previous steps.
By the end, you should now have both sides and the rear of the PAWC (made up of three full-sized pallets) completely wired together.

First PAWC completed!

Taking one of the half-pallets, stand it up so that the slats are horizontal, and the side which was not cut through is laying on the ground (i.e. the side which was cut through forms the top edge).

Slide the half-pallet in place, and wire it in on both sides (in three places per side, but two wired connections will probably be sufficient if you don’t have much wire, or simply don’t feel the need for wiring it in three places).

Congratulations! You have just completed your first PAWC.

The second (and any additional) PAWC(s)

The following steps will show you how to create the second PAWC, and can be extended into creating as many of these PAWCs as you like.

Next pallet placed for the rear wall.

Stand another pallet upright, and place it such that it continues the rear wall.

Wiring rear wall in place.

Wire the new pallet in place as per the previous instructions. There will now be two pallets connected to the middle pallet (which was originally the left-most wall on the previous PAWC).

New rear and left wall added.

Add another pallet to the PAWC to form the three main walls of the new PAWC. Wire it in place as per the previous instructions.

Additional PAWC completed!

As with the first PAWC, take one of the half-pallets, stand it up so that the slats are horizontal, and the side which was not cut through is laying on the ground.

Slide the half-pallet in place, and wire it in as per the previous instructions.

Congratulations! You have just completed yet another PAWC.

Possible changes

Given the absolute simplicity of this design, it’s completely up to you for if you want to make these PAWCs as-is, or change them in minor or substantial ways. For example, in future we’re thinking of hammering in some garden stakes to the front of the PAWCs. This is so that, instead of the front half-pallets being held in place by wire, they will be held in place by the stakes pressing them against the other pallets. In this way, the front half-pallets can slide up and out, granting easier access to the compost.

Or, you could take the basic idea of using pallets for compost and put them together in another way. You could join the pallets via hammer and nail, join the front half-pallet up via hinge so it acts as a swinging door, etc.

Something I like about simple designs such as this is their ability to be used as-is for ultimate simplicity, or altered to be as complicated as you like. Yet at the same time, using pallets for compost storage may simply be something you hadn’t thought of yet. So I hope, however you decide to use this PAWC recipe, it helps you in some small way, and you get some amazing compost out of them.

(Originally published, by me, on Hubpages.com - 24/03/2015)