On Sun, 21 Jan 2007 10:03:45 +0000, Gill Matthews wrote
(in article ):

In article ,
says...
Hi,

I'm going to try and make r raised beds & was told that railway
sleepers are a good material to use.

snip

Does anyone know of a Leeds supplier of railway sleepers that sell
them at a more affordable price?

use old recycled scaffold planks not railway sleepers. These are inevitably
expensive because they have a huge ammount of wood in them. Sleepers
recycled from the railway are no longer sold because of the large
quantitiy of carcenogenic tar products they contain. Scaffolding companies
and hire firms regularly replace their planks as not being safe enough to
use but they are still plenty strong enogh to hold back a bit of earth.

I echo everyone else's suggestions of using old scaffold boards. Talk to
some friendly builders! Apart from the price, they have extra advantages in
being lighter to move around and easier to saw to size if you need (believe
you me, it is not easy to saw through a railway sleeper!), and also you do
not get the possible problems of creosote leaching out in the sun which you
do get with old sleepers.

We have used old scaffolding boards for a raised veg bed, and it has worked
extremely well (apart from shorty with a bad back here having to make steps
up to get into it!).




--
Sally in Shropshire, UK
bed and breakfast near Ludlow: http://www.stonybrook-ludlow.co.uk
Burne-Jones/William Morris window in Shropshire church:
http://www.whitton-stmarys.org.uk