Ready, Set, Go; Come on Spring

With Spring just around the corner, so says the ground hog, I thought I had better get things moving.  Having a market garden is a lot of prep and work in general, but I love every minute of it.  I made a potting table a couple of weeks ago, and shared it on Facebook and have had several requests for a detailed description of what I did so others could do the same, so that is today's project.  Make another and share it.  Please realize that I am not a carpenter and the angles may not be perfect, but it serves the purpose and anyone can do it.  All you need is a plastic drum and some scrap lumber.  I bought the drum for $20 and had plenty of lumber laying around, so basically it is my time invested.  However, it will serve my needs in a big way. 

The first thing you do is cut the barrel into two halves.  This was done with a jig saw and was quite easy.  The barrel is already marked in half in the plastic so I just followed the line.  Next, cut the boards to encase the barrel.  Be careful with your dimensions as the barrel is larger on the top end than the bottom.  I found this out the hard way.  

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Screw the boards together and then place them over the plastic drum.  It will take a bit of pushing to get it into place.  The first one I made was quite a chore as I did not realize that the drum was not the same top and bottom.  It ended up separating my boards and pulling the screws out so I had to re-cut the larger end boards.  No worries though, I just used them for some of the bracing.

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After you have the drum placed how you want it, drill holes in the tube for screws to secure it to the frame, and then screw in place.  Don't dry to place the screws without drilling.  This plastic is pretty thick and will fight you every step of the way.

Next come the legs. I wanted mine a nice height so that I did not have to bend over.  I cut the legs 36" long and secured them to the outside frame.  It ended up being about counter height which is perfect.  I also braced each set of legs on the inside at a predetermined distance to support the legs, but also hold a bottom shelf for storage.

From here you continue to brace the legs and place the bottom shelf.

Now to get it where I want it.  This ended up being pretty heavy.  Much to heavy for me, so I moved it into my high tunnel with a two-wheeler.  Once leveled and in place I stepped back and admired my work and was suddenly struck with a genus of an idea.  My hand tools are always scattered about and I am constantly looking for them.  I can add supports on each end to hold all of those tools.  Off I go to the barn to see what I can find for a support.   It did not take me long.  My husband is a plumber and has all kinds of neat stuff in his shop.  Plumbers strap did the trick for me.  East to install and perfect for what I needed.

There you have it, my finished potting table.  As I was looking at it, I was struck with another idea; add support to the back and you could place shelves up the backside on top.  I may do that in the future to hold pots and trays.  For now, I am just happy with my creation and ready to start using it.  Happy potting!