Allotments 4 All

I am at the stage where I need to protect my plot from scrumpersaand from wild life.

I'd appreciate any ideas on the most effective, most economic way

all ideas welcome

if you have access to a load of pallets you could make a prety nice picket fence. my dad made me one for the back garden to keep the dog off the grass. and all it cost me was a gate hinge and a tin of fence paint. oh and a couple of bags of sand and cement!

Pallets are good I agree but not the easiest option as you'll need to pull them apart! If you do go for it though try and get hold of some plasterboard/ sheet timber ones as they're 8 foot long and will be ideal for the horizontals!
We bought a roll (50 meters I think) of fine green netting that's about 4 foot tall. Posts were 3x2 and 4x2 scrounged offcuts, some treated some painted by us, from a few building sites and also to finish some 8 foot roofing batten as horizontals.
On top of that some screws, galvanised nails and gate hinges and catch.
All in was about £60.
We then got another adjoining half plot, reused the gate moved the existing fencing round and the remainder of the roll was used with some more bits of timber.

OH made a 56' fence from pallets & it looks lovely. He made most of it as a picket fence but at the top end he made it solid so that he could attach the composters to it when he made them. All done now.
Janet

great comments

what about using hedging - any ideas or insights welcome

Hi Daxzen,

If you use hedging it may block out the light on your plot.
You`ll have to work out where its shadow is cast. Thats why I used
chain link on the long side of my number one plot. Although the cost
was held down by a collection of round poles aquired over the past few
years and rolls of unused fencing from another plot holder.
It depends what materials you can get, some people here use pig fencing
which has an open square mesh. I think they get it from car boot sales and
farm suppliers.

There has been a rise in thefts of crops on our site - last year someone stole
every pear off my pear tree and every apple off someone elses.

Col

Quote from: daxzen on May 12, 2009, 15:31:08
I am at the stage where I need to protect my plot from scrumpers and from wild life.

http://www.agrisellex.co.uk/

  Hi Daxzen,

  I n short  --  chicken wire and stout posts -- let the chicken wire go above the posts,

  insecure footing for foxes.  Make sure it is small guage wire as the foxes can get their

  noses in and chew it apart  [  experience  ]  if there are large ' holes '.

  M ake entry difficult and not worth the hassle,

   floss xxx

I agree with all of the above, but if you are thinking of going down the hedge root!! no pun intended!! lol.

consider black thorn hedge that will keep the thiefs out!! keep it cut 4ft high.

I was lucky with mine we have an old chain mail fence

I suppose going down the pallet road is cheap but a lot of work, I would by a roll Debris netting off e-bay £30.00 which is a  50x3 metres roll, cut roll in half and you will have plenty of netting to put round your lotty, :)

At Betty's open day in Walsall yesterday, I saw a brilliant idea I'm tempted to copy.....someone had used wooden pallets just laid on their ends to form a fence, and then used one extra bit of wood to make a bottom to the upper edge to make a small planting box! I though they would look great planted up with strawberries etc. Obviously they won't last forever, but would be a cheap and useful structure!

any photo's Deb?

Sadly no...... ::)