Cedar Fence Picket Planter

14 Jul 2023

A cedar fence picket is about $3 for a 6 feet long by 5-1/2 inch wide by 19/32 inch thick piece of wood. #10 x 1” Wood screws are about $8 for a pack of 100. It takes about 14 screws to put the planter together, so about about a little more than $4 a planter with an internal volume of 5.5 x 5 x 19 = 552.5 cubic inches or 0.3 cubic feet. Cow manure is about $3 for a cubic foot, so it about $5 for a 0.3 cubic feet growing container.

Take a fence picket that is 70 inches long. Cut it into two 5” length pieces that will be the ends and three 20” length pieces that will from the sides and bottom. Use drill pilot holes to prevent splitting and use 7 screws on each side to secure everything together.

$4 / 0.3 = $13.33 / cubic feet of planter.

A 22” resin planter is about $20 for 1.6 cubic feet or about $12.5 / cubic feet of planter.

You can make a 11 x 11 x 24 = 1.68 cubic feet planter with 2 cedar fence pickets. This is about $4.76 / cubic feet of planter.

You can make a 16.5 x 16.5 x 36 = 9801 cubic inch = 5.67 cubic feet planter with 8 cedar fence pickets. Let’s say that is about $32 in materials, so about $5.64 / cubic feet of planter.

In terms of cost per growing volume, the larger the container, the better the costs. If we take a cube, the surface area is 6 x s^2 while the volume is s^3. Cost scales with the surface area, so the cost per volume is ~ 1 / s.