The arrival of wooden pallets at the allotment shop with chicken feed or compost always causes a stir. If they are not taken back to the supplier then they are available to turn into something useful. The pine wood can be put to good use in many ways. Some times they are used whole and other times the first, often tricky, task will be to lever the planks off. An allotment can never have enough wooden pallets.
These are destined to make some new roof cover for the Community Chicken area.
Wooden Pallet Compost Bays
Recycling the wood from a pallet is great, and using it to be the structure to recycle vegetation is really popular. A bay needs four sides and is easy to make. Standing four wooden pallets end-up (bases facing inwards) they can be nailed or lashed together. They are a great size giving up to 2 cubic meters for the micro-organisms to generate heat. Great for worms to hide in too. With several multi bay composers can be created so that over a few years, there will be one being filled, one decomposing and one being used. There are some lovely examples on the Weaste Allotment site.
Pallet Potting Table
Using wooden pallets to make a potting table, outside a shed, can be temporary or permanent and fancy or simple. A pallet on top of up-turned buckets or on a couple of trestle legs will give a free draining table top. It can be hidden behind the shed when not needed. If you can not find trestle legs then you could make some from another pallet!
Useful in sheds
Hang one up in the shed as somewhere to pin your plot plan or seed packets as you finish them. Or as notice boards in the Community Hut. Too heavy for the shed wall? Take off the base planks and create something smaller to put up. Also great to tether and lean a pallet inside at floor level and put growing canes and tools with long handles in like a rake (upside down). There are people who have constructed entire sheds from pallets too.
Paths
Each plot holder is responsible for the maintenance of a path one side of their plot. Some leave it as a raised grassed path, others dig down and put on wood chip. Hard surfaces are good for accessibility of wheels such as strollers used for carrying children or those with mobility challenges. With paths 60 cm wide a pallet can be turned into a raised board-walk or duck-board. Take care not to space the wood too far apart so that feet can not slip through and get caught. Put down some used cardboard or old carpet to line the pathway underneath which will enable water to soak through. The board walk sections can be lifted to clear any weeds over time. Easy to repair too. Give it a good brush off if it gets slippery from leaves or algae.
The list goes on.
There are so many things that can be done with wooden pallets. There are Pinterest pages full of potential builds and how to get the pallet apart. Weaste Allotments is always delighted to receive pallets from local businesses. Please let the Secretary know that you will be dropping them off so that we know where they come from. Thank you.