DIY Plant Caddy

This plant caddy is an easy project that can be made using scrap wood and 4 casters. Our garden is spread out all over the front of our house because that is where we get the most sunlight. However, the front yard is the only place for grass and where the kids play, so I don’t want to tear it up and turn it into a garden. To make more room for gardening, we have a lot of potted plants on our front entry and stairs.

plant caddy 7

I’ve been worrying that these pots sitting on the decking might eventually rot the wood. The pots are also very heavy, making them difficult to move. When I looked into buying plant caddies, I found they ranged from $10 (for low quality) up to around $30 each. Since I needed about 20 of these, I questioned whether it would be cheaper to go buy the vegetables (this is my usual dilemma with gardening). I hated to give up my potted garden and disliked the idea of the deck rotting out even more, when Chris started thinking about how we could make a plant caddy out of materials we already had on hand.

Finished Plant Caddy

Chris found casters on amazon for a reasonable price and we found some scrap wood leftover from replacing our back stairs last summer.  We had saved all the treads, re-using what we could and still had a lot of pieces left over. We thought these small pieces would made good plant stands. Chris ripped the boards on the table saw into 2 inch wide strips, then cut them down on the chop saw to 12 inches long. Now, we had a pile of wood pieces that were 3/4 inch thick x 2 inches wide x 12 inches long.

To assemble the plant caddy, he placed 3 pieces going one way, then lined up four pieces running the opposite way. The straight edge of the table saw helped keep everything in line. With the corners all lined up, we had a 12″ x 12″ square.

Plant Caddy 1

Plant caddy 2

Next, he nailed where the pieces crossed, on both sides. He didn’t use anything special for the nails, just some he had on hand.

plant caddy 3

plant caddy 4

Next, he screwed the casters to the bottom.

plant caddy 5

plant caddy 6

This was a pretty quick and easy project because we had the scrap wood on hand and the tools to put this together. If we had to buy the wood, it might have been cheaper to buy plant stands, although I don’t think we would have been as happy with the store-bought variety. Since the wood came off our old stairs, it was already painted and a bit worn, so the stands match our deck.

Finished Plant Caddy