Let's build a picket fence

One thing that I have been rather keen on is keeping my allotment boundaries tidy - I have a battery powered strimmer that I regularly use to keep the path edges under control, and I made sure that there was space behind my shed and first raised bed to give me a path between my allotment and the one behind.

What I really wanted though was a neat barrier between the allotments so I started collecting pallets. Once I had three or four I took my tools down and started breaking them down in to useable bits of timber.

There is a definite art to breaking down a pallet, and rather than re-writing something that has been written many times before I would suggest that you visit 1001 pallets and go to their tutorials section where you will find many useful tips!

As my pallets were varying sizes I found that I had different lengths of timber:

broken down pallets ready to become a fence

I decided that I could use this to my advantage in one of two ways - either make a fence where the pieces were all random, or create a more stylish design. I chose to go down what I think was the more stylish route:

Finished picket fence panel

The uprights were attached to the battens with screws and pins - the screws to make sure it didn't come apart (one screw at each 'crossover') and the pins to make sure that the fence stayed square.

For the moment I haven't treated or painted the fence, but later in the year when the weather improves I will paint them a suitable colour.

Finished panels in place