Wall Garden and "shelf of Shame" Out of Old Wood

A friend of mine had her birthday a few days back. She wanted something special from me (and my wife). She's living in the fourth floor and don't have access to a garden. Long story short, she wanted a garden on her kitchen wall.

The front is painted and can be used as Chalkboard. The coolest thing about that wall garden is the watering system. On the bottom of the shelf is a water bowl the plants are not directly in the water they are only connected with a wool thread. Physic does the rest --> Capillary action

The shelf of shame while building the wall garden some mistakes and other flaws are happened. One of them was quite destructive... now I have also a shelf without any watering options.

Step 1: Plans and Only Bought Part

My wife had a (long) meeting with her. And one of many sketches from me...

The most critical part was the water bowl due to the simple fact that it is quite hard to produce something like this at home.

Step 2: Preparing the Wood

Like in most of my projects I'm not measuring all parts. I Only compare the dimensions with the already existing stuff. I'm a little bit sorry that I'm not able to provide any values.

The wood for the project was something in the garden of my parents since 2 years ago. It was exposed to the weather for more than 15 years and I'm happy that nobody trowed it away.

To connect the boards I've used wooden dowels. Also here I've never measured anything thanks to the little bras tools. with them you drill a hole in one of the board. stick in the little thing and then press the counter part onto it. Now you have a little marking on the other board.

Step 3: Beautify the Wood

For storage I've only removed the earth and nails from the wood. So a separate cleaning of the surface was needed. Therefore I've used a brushing wheel on my grinder. With this technique you are able to also make your wood look older due to the different hardness of the wood. (in the winter month a tree "produces" harder wood than in the summer)

Step 4: Glue Together the "shelf of Shame"

Here you see the last pictures before the wall garden becomes the "shelf of shame".

And yes I know my clamps were to short

Step 5: Glue Together the "wall Garden"

Here is now the wall garden again. I've now long enough clamps also.

There is one step missing. The pockets in the second picture will later support two threaded rods which then hold the plants. The only reason why the step is missing is quite simple. I've forgotten to take pictures due to the lack of time. (The birthday of a person is not negotiable)

Step 6: The Front

The front consists of two parts. The upper part is a chalkboard the other part is a small door to refill the water bowl. The two parts are connected with a hinge which I found in the trash. To keep the door open I've embedded two magnets in the two parts of the front.

Step 7: The Plant Mount

The plants need to be mounted somehow. Therefore I've used some old hangers from the laundry to form 10 semi circle.

Step 8: Final Assembly

The final assembly was somewhere between 1 to 2 in the morning due to the incident with the "shelf of shame".

I've glued on the chalkboard front added the 10mm threaded rod and the hanger and applied the little door.

Something which is missing on the pictures are the nuts which hold the hangers together.

Step 9: The Watering System

As mentioned in the first step the water will travel via capillarity from the bowl to the plant. It is important to use natural wool otherwise your plant will die quick because of potential tannic acid.