Homemade Potting Bench Plans

Here is a quick post with plans for building our current potting bench and a link to my starter bench. We outgrew our little Johnny’s Selected Seeds potting bench a couple years ago and Moussa built us this one. We love that it is also portable. It sits on some bulb crates. We’ve moved it to several different locations in our greenhouse as plants required juggling. This bench is about to get busy!

We’re not yet starting seeds. We don’t have any long, slow growers this year. We overwintered our eucalyptus and we are using plugs for our lisianthus. The first seeds we start will likely be some cold loving biennials and annuals: foxglove, stock, poppies. One of the biggest mistakes we can make here is starting too early. It’s hard to see other people starting seeds in warmer climates, and it’s easy to get wrapped into their schedules. We have to remember to stick to our plan.

For this bench we used 3/4inch plywood. The base is 4ft wide by 3ft deep. The walls are 10 inches high. And the two side walls are 3ft deep on the bottom edge and only 2 ft deep on top, allowing for the taper. You could build it with 90 degree cornered sidewalls, we prefer the taper because it makes moving heavy bags and containers on to and off of the bench a little easier. The plan below is also linked as a download. We cut our plywood with a table saw and a hand held jigsaw.

The boards are screwed together with wood screws. I recommend using the assistance of a 90 degree corner clamp tool or a carpenters square and some extra hands to help with construction. The plywood is sealed with marine varnish - a rugged sealant meant to take the punishment of humidity and water. We sealed all sides and edges of the potting bench with 2 coats of varnish.

We’re looking forward to more preparations for spring soon! Cheers!