The day I had 30 pallets delivered to our house my husband thought I was nuts. I had found an advertisement on facebook to buy shipping pallets for $1 each back in 2017. "What use could pallets be to us," my husband asked. Years later I'm so glad I got those pallets because they've come in handy in so many ways.

1. Baby Gates

With a young toddler, taking our little one outside on our front porch is dangerous. The front porch is really high up above the ground since the mountain slopes steeply down in the front. My biggest fear was her getting too close to the tall staircase and falling. The first time I used my pallets was to make baby gates on the front porch. One and a half pallets made a perfect gate to keep my toddler from getting near the stairs.

I also ended up using a second pallet in the back yard on our patio deck. It has a nice railing around it with bars so she can't get off from the sides. I could put my daughter on the patio to play, close the gate and have her safe while I worked nearby on projects.

2. Quick and Easy Baby Animal Pen

When I first took my new ducklings outside I made them a pallet pen to run around in to keep them safe. They were too little to run around free and a pallet pen was perfect for tiny little ducks. Since the pallets are already put together, a few screws took minutes to link them up to make a pen. As the ducks got bigger, it was easy to add pallets with a few screws to expand the pen. Later, when the ducks were full grown I used their pen to protect a small backyard garden from them. They started trampling my tomato plants and the pallets kept the ducks out to keep my garden safe.

3. Raccoon Proofing

When a terrible raccoon got into my container corn garden, pallets again made a great fence. I easily made a pallet fence around my corn, added some hardware cloth at the top to keep my fence tall, and I had protection from animals for my plants.

3. Raised Garden Beds

With a hacksaw I was able to remove the top boards from pallet frames. A pallet frame is a perfect raised bed frame. Put it on the ground, add some good soil into it, then plant some seeds for a small garden patch.

If a pallet has wide spaces between it's top boards, you could use the pallet as is for a raised bed. I bought some garden fabric to keep weeds out of garden patches. Turn the pallet over to it's unboarded side and staple garden fabric to to cover it. Flip it over and poor dirt in it. The garden fabric keeps weeds out and dirt in. Plant seeds to plants that will have short roots. I think lettuce, bush beans, and strawberries are perfect for this method.

4. Weights For Wind Control

Right now my husband and I have three pallets on our roof holding down a plastic tarp. Because our roof is leaking, we had to put a tarp up there to stop the leak temporarily until we can get a new roof. We had a terrible wind storm yesterday. Rushing to secure our tarp, pallets became the perfect device to weight it down. In the past I've also propped them against my duck coop that is covered in plastic for the winter. The pallets have helped on windy days to keep the plastic from ripping off.

5. Tool Storage

I took one pallet, screwed it to the wall of our carport and now we store our shovels, brooms, rakes, etc in the open middle of it. Easy storage solution.

I'm sure I'll find many more uses for my pallets over time. The ones I got are a bit hard to break down and have broken slats so they aren't good for making furniture or shelves or pretty things. Mostly, they are good for outdoor garden/farm type uses. Years later I'm really glad I bought them because I sue them all the time for one thing or another. Today my free ranging ducks wouldn't go in their pen for the night. I grabbed some pallets to block off their escape routes and they helped me get the ducks in their house. Pallets have been the solution to many problems I've run into and are so handy for something that cost $1 each.