We’ve got a very sunny east facing wall in our garden (right out side the kitchen) that receives great sunlight till about 4pm each day from March to late October. I’d like to build a vertical planter for fresh herbs and salads.

Anyone done anything similar?

http://lifeonthebalcony.com/how-to-turn-a-pallet-into-a-garden/

I have used pallets in the past for growing strawberries in a very similar point just stapple weed membrane to the back and pack with compost, if you can get decent pallets it can look really good, you could of course build something on the same lines out of decent timber that would last a bit longer but pallets are either free of £1 so they are hard to beat in my opinion.