It’s been a particulary productive season for Ramune, STT member and master composter. She has taken advantage of the mesh materials, provided by Fingal County Council, and the abundance of leaves to extend her leaf mould composting programme in Swords.
A new leaf mould (old cage replacement) was installed and filled at Pinnock Hill on October 14. Thirteen bags of two-year-old compost from the previous years were taken to our polytunnel to be used in our gardening projects.
Two weeks later with the help of other STT members and Transition Year students, the year-old leaves were taken to the tunnel for further composting, and the cage re-filled with fresh leaves.
Later in the month Ramune and Grace relocated, combined and prepared the leaf cages in Seatown for the new season. In November 4 new cages were installed and filled, and the two other ones topped up.
On November 7, Ramune helped Kay, a Carlton Court estate resident, to set up two leaf cages. A third mould was installed shortly afterwards. All three were packed to full capacity over the following weeks. By December a total of 5 were in position on that estate.
Another STT member, Catherine, collected leaves for the new cage at Cherry Park. On November 8 she and her neighbours were shocked to discover that a small group of young teenagers had set fire to the cage. We are accustomed to working with enthusiastic, hard-working Transition Year students, so this was totally unexpected. Never daunted, Catherine and Ramune installed a new cage the next day, and salvaged what they could. To our dismay the new cage was damaged two days later. It has now been relocated in a more public position, and neighbours have been keeping a watchful eye on it. Another new cages has been installed in the neighbouring Cherry Avenue.
On November 11, cages on Watery Lane and by the Fire Station were emptied/combined and refilled. On November 25 a new cage was installed on Watery Lane next to the Town Park and older ones topped up.
With the help of Malachy, a STT member, two more cages were installed at Rivervalley Rise.
Ramune received 6 extra cages from Craig Benton through FCC, as she’d used up all 8 of the original quota at the start of the season. All 14 new cages (a replacement of old cages in some cases) were installed and filled this year in Swords. Currently, Swords Tidy Towns members are looking after 26 leaf mould cages in various locations in Swords.
A by-product of this scheme was the prevention of slipping accidents. We cleared paths of fallen, wet leaves as we worked.
It was wonderful to see how many residents of the town became interested in learning more about this type of composting, as they saw us go about our work. So leaf cages may appear in more housing estates and in new locations around town next autumn.
Swords Tidy Towns 