Tutorial: Turn a Wine Barrel Into a Planter (perfect for trees!)

Tutorial: Turn a Wine Barrel Into a Planter

This...

...into this!

First of all you will need some old wine or whiskey barrels. You can search online for some but shipping costs will be the killer. I would first check with local wineries to see if they sell their old used barrels.

Tools you'll need:

Circular Saw (or jigsaw can work, too!)

Drill with 1/2" or larger drill bit

Screws or nails (optional but good to keep the barrel rings in place)

Ear plugs and eye protection



1.) Choose where you are going to saw the barrel. Angle the saw accordingly to follow the angle of the barrel.

It worked out to have the circular saw guide follow the second barrel ring from the end. (Pictured above.)

2.) Slowly saw around the barrel making sure to keep your guide against the ring. You should rotate the barrel as you saw. Be careful and do not do this in a hurry. (You should have on your ear and eye protection during this step!)

You will have two planters from one barrel - The very large deep part that is perfect for trees....

and the shorter part of the barrel that is perfect for herbs, flowers, and growing salad greens!

3.) Drill water drainage holes into the bottom of both of your new planters.

We put 3 holes into the bottom of each planter.

4.) Optional, Put either screws or nails under the barrel rings and above the rings so that you keep the rings from shifting. The rings can move if you don't do this and the barrels may bow out or even split open if the rings come off. 

5.) Add in dirt and plant your plants! We put in a mixture of potting soil and some planting dirt mix with fertilizer in it.  It took 1/2 cubic yard of dirt to fill two large planters and two small planters. Since we had four wine barrels we need to get some more dirt this weekend!

We planted some fruit trees that I bought a week ago. One is an apple tree with 4 branches with different varieties of fruit grafted onto the trunk. The other is a cherry tree with 3 varieties of fruit.

We still have two more large barrels so we are planning on getting a plum tree and a pear tree! I'm excited but this is quite a learning experience. I have no idea what I'm doing to be frank. I've went and asked advice from the local nurseries so I think I will just continue to find information from everyone I can. I think these plants are off to a good start.