Seasonal Almanac

This morning, we were charged with a reconnisance mission of finding untreated railway sleepers to make raised beds for growing vegetables. Redmond had a couple of leads: Coasties Big Shed and a landscape suppler in Kembla Grange.

Coasties Big Shed is run by Erik and is wholly focused on the recycling and re-use of building materials- an eco-friendly hardware house. All the materials in the yard and the shed are meticulously organised, but this, in no way, reduces the treasure-hunting quality of big sheds and builder’s yards. When we arrived, three people were lifting a big trapezoid-shaped wooden crate onto the roof of their little hatch-back. Redmond enquired about the railway sleepers that are currently on sale (mainly because Erik unthinkingly had these delivered to his driveway and now could not get his truck out from the shed). Unfortunately, the sleepers had been chemically treated for their original purpose rendering them unsituable for the veggie patch.

It turned out that the by comparison rather bland commercial landscape supplies in Kembla Grange has the untreated B grade sleepers we wanted. But as a way of showing our support for Coasties, we went back to buy two trapezoid crates from Erik (the ones we saw the three people putting onto their little car) with the intention to making them into large composting bins (see how a Mr. Colin McIntyre has done this: third picture down).