How To Make a Spool Planter an Easy DIY Project
Making a spool planter is an easy weekend project for any level diy-er. We were able to knock this project out in about two hours.
Here are all the details.
You may recall my funny(ish) story about finding a spool sticking its head out of a dumpster in a parking lot. Well after a few months of dreaming, we decided to build a planter out of it. This is our 6th container for our kitchen garden and it works perfectly.
This is probably one of the easiest things we’ve made/built and I love the unique character it adds to the garden.
Here is what you need.
- A wooden spool (or cable reel) used on construction sites to hold electrical wiring. They can be a little tricky to find, we got lucky. Typically though salvage yards have them and if you ask around you might be able to get one from a friend in the construction business.
- A saw- we used a Dewalt Sawzall
- Work gloves
- A level
- An aluminum yardstick or tape measure
How to Make a Spool Planter
First you need to saw off some of the wood to create a base for the planter to sit horizontally level (so essentially the spool will be sitting on its side when you are all finished).
Lay the spool on its side, and have someone hold it so it doesn’t roll. Use your tape measure, yardstick and level to draw a line on each side of the spool, making sure the line is the same distance down on both sides. 
Now stand the spool back up so that it is sitting on the base, and saw along each line.
After the sawing on both sides is complete just check the level one more time.
Once the spool is sitting horizontally (so on its side) simply take the saw and cut out three or four boards from the neck of the spool. On ours, they were just seated right into grooves that the spool already had so it was incredibly easy to get them out.
At this point you can paint, stain or sand your spool. I plan to simply do a little weather proofing and keep mine as it is.
Creating a planter out of your spool
Once your spool is in place you may need to fill in the small openings on each side of the container where your soil and plants will go. I took some leftover chicken wire and folded small sections so that the wire was really dense. Then, I placed it on both sides of the plant box and poured my soil in. Super duper easy guys, just wear gloves. You could even use burlap fabric here too. The main thing you want to think about is drainage for the water. When you container garden this is a crazy important element, you want the water to have a place to get out if need be.
As you can see our modest kitchen garden, which was very much on purpose this year, is really transformed by having the spool in it. This was a crazy easy project that the whole family enjoyed. If you are thinking about making a planter out of a spool, I highly recommend it!
Update: You can read more about our gardening journey, here, here, here , and here.
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