From bathtub to road garden beauty - how it works and looks

An old enamel bathtub donated by a family renovating their house in Pine street, Chippendale, is now a raised garden bed, a seat and an occasional shower in Pine Street.

The video tells the story.

This self-irrigating raised bed garden can be built by anyone; ingredients and tools needed are listed below.

The occasional shower happens when it rains on the adjoining building’s roof. Before we did this the down pipe was broken where it used to direct rain water to the gutter where it ran to pollute Blackwattle Bay. Now, the rain water is directed to a shower above the bathtub.

Building rubble in the base of the bathtub drains surplus water to the garden bed below and surrounding plants.

To keep rainwater where it falls agricultural pipe was buried along the edge of the footpath and beside the kerb. This pipe absorbs rainwater running off the footpath and prevents overflow running over the kerb to the gutter to drain down and pollute Blackwattle Bay.

The area of footpath draining the verge garden is about 6 square metres. The area of the garden is about 2 square metres, bringing the total rain harvesting area at the ground level to about 8 square metres.

To convert rainfall to rain water harvesting the annual rainfall in millimetres is converted to litres. About 1270 mm of rain falls a year in Chippendale, or 1270 litres a square metres. Thus, the 8 square metres will harvest and direct about 10,160 litres of rain a year. If we add about 30 square metres of roof from the adjoining warehouse that’s another 38,100 litres of water a year or a grand total of 48,260 litres of rain harvested a year to nourish the verge garden and the bathtub garden.

Cost?

$nil for the plants, soil, compost as those came from the community compost bins and road gardens.

The plumbing cost for the pipes $42.

Thanks to Chippendale locals - Elena, Anthony, David for the hands on, and Cassie for the vid. Thanks to Don for leading with the plumbing.

Onwards!

Ingredients needed for a self-irrigating bathtub garden:

• Roof

• Downpipe from roof

• Cut into or do what’s needed to get the downpipe where it runs below ground

• A varying number of right angled and 45 degree bends and pipe to get the water from the downpipe to the bathtub

• Use a 40mm pipe for the vertical and drill holes in the horizontal 40mm to make shower holes

Tools:

• Shovel, pick, saw, pipe, pipe fittings/joiners, perhaps cement mixed with sand if there’s a join you want to make sure doesn’t leak, old bathtub (enamel ones are good but heavy), bricks to stabilise the bathtub, building rubble of broken bricks, gravel to put in the bottom of the bathtub for drainage to the plug hole which can then drain water to the road verge or other garden bed below and adjoining the bathtub.

• If making a seat to go on the bathtub edge: drill, nails, screws, hardwood timber (recycled)

Hello, Earth. We love you.

Any of us can.