Pallet Herb Garden

NorthLondonChick

Hi Friends

I am thinking of making one of those vertical pallet gardens to put herbs in and I wondered if anyone had any experience of them?

We have several pallets left over from our wedding including a thin one which I'm hoping to use for the herbs. I have the necessary webbing to staple to the pallet to make pouches for the plants to sit in.

The location will be immediately to the left of our kitchen door as it makes sense to have it as near as possible for maximum use. The wall it will be against gets full morning sun until about noon then late afternoon/evening sun.

At the moment I only have sage, coriander, mint and chives to put in but it will eventually hold 8 herbs so I'm hoping to add basil, parsley, thyme and rosemary once I find somewhere selling them.

The questions I have are:

• As a container will it need watering every day?
• Does the soil get all muddy and gross and leak out everywhere?
• What type of soil should I use?
• Anything I can do to keep away slugs?
• Any other tips?

I'm torn between fixing it to the wall (with an added polythene back to stop moisture into the walls) or to add feet so that it's freestanding. I'd rather have it looking permanent against the wall but at least I could move it around if necessary if its on feet.

Our garage is being demolished in 2 weeks so our garden will double in size to 16ft square so I'm very excited to actually be able to use it for something! :T

Thank you for the help xx

TheGardener

NorthLondonChick wrote: »

....
The questions I have are:

• As a container will it need watering every day? - yes if the weather is very dry but many herbs are Mediterranean and can stand to dry out a bit
  
• Does the soil get all muddy and gross and leak out everywhere? if you find soil is gross - then maybe gardening isn't for you - However, if you use a porous membrane of some sort (or even cut up an old blanket)and use under the soil as a liner it will stop the soil falling out
  
• What type of soil should I use? Ideally a John Innes number 3 but a regular compost from the garden centre will do
  
• Anything I can do to keep away slugs? Most herbs are not normally bothered by slugs but some of the organic solutions like crushed egg shells can help - I wouldn't use slug pellets on a food crop if there are pets or children about. ....

Hope this helps

NorthLondonChick

Fantastic thank you!!

unrecordings

I'd leave the thing mobile if your garden is going to radically change soon - plus it gives you the chance to try a few permutations

I'd consider putting mediterranean (dry tolerant) herbs like thyme rosemary, sage at the top and wet/shade tolerant herbs like mint at the bottom - so that excess water is used more effectively

If you're growing tarragon then you will have a slug problem, but hopefully the roughness of the pallet timber might put them off - so if there is an 'up' and a 'down' to your pallet, set it so the grain of the wood (ie the splinters) are pointing down for maximum slug annoyance

davemorton

unrecordings wrote: »

I'd leave the thing mobile if your garden is going to radically change soon - plus it gives you the chance to try a few permutations

I'd consider putting mediterranean (dry tolerant) herbs like thyme rosemary, sage at the top and wet/shade tolerant herbs like mint at the bottom - so that excess water is used more effectively

If you're growing tarragon then you will have a slug problem, but hopefully the roughness of the pallet timber might put them off - so if there is an 'up' and a 'down' to your pallet, set it so the grain of the wood (ie the splinters) are pointing down for maximum slug annoyance

I found a snail half way along a branch on my monkey puzzle tree, they must be getting double hard around these parts, so doubt a few splinters would stop that one. :eek:

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

For Rosemary, sage and thyme, add some sand to the compost - mine thrive in almost pure sand, but previous incarnations died in compost. I think coriander does better in free draining soil, too. Make sure the mint doesn't have an easy route to get into the garden soil itself, though, or you'll never go short of the stuff - fine if you love mint sauce and mint tea to the exclusion of all other foods , but not great if you want to use your garden next summer without smelling rather like a lamb chop.

CAFCGirl

Personally I would plant mint in its very own separate container, if its happy, it will explode and take over the whole thing, drowning out anyting else you have growing in there.

My only other tips would be to plant your coriander furthest you can to your parsley - they can after a while look very similar, and using the wrong one can ruin a good dish