Wood Treatment For Raised Garden Bed

If you use pressure treated wood or commercial wood sealers you risk having unwanted chemicals leak into the environment and into your garden produce.
Wood treatment for raised garden bed. Now i have a reason to use my double boiler. Can pressure treated wood be used as part of an organic vegetable garden. Raised vegetable bed with treated wood. Your wood finishing recipe sounds fantastic and i hope to get some raised beds built by this fall.
The type and thickness of the wood can make a big difference to the overall life of a wooden raised vegetable bed. Building a raised garden bed creates an interesting dilemma. Raised beds are a neat and tidy option for growing vegetables and ornamental crops and are easy to manage. Here s what i know.
But if you skip the sealer or preservative your raised bed may not last long. Whether it is used to create raised beds the edges of paths or a frame for protective netting wood is the natural choice for many gardeners. Apart from being a sustainable resource it looks good and is great for creating a new structure for vegetable beds that will hold in compost or keep out pests. Pressure treated lumber is an option.
If you are looking for designs i have free plans for building raised garden beds here. Lamiot wikimedia commons pressured treated. That leaves very few options for treating wood for raised garden beds. Cedar and redwood are naturally water resistant but can be expensive and hard to find.
The two most commonly marketed products are linseed oil and tung oil. Thanks for that printable info. If going for a soft wood something like a pine then using structural grade planks that are around 5cm 2 inches thick will certainly outlast a frame that is constructed from low quality thinner timber. Joe mabel wikimedia commons there is a long standing controversy in the field of organic gardening.
Raised beds are garden containers commonly made from wood and the type of wood we use will determine how long lasting safe and sustainable they are. Here are some options. Wood that isn t pressure treated tends to rot fairly quickly in contact with the soil. Neither treatment has been thoroughly demonstrated to prolong the life of wood when in contact with soil.
Hemlock fir and pine are suitable materials for raised beds but aren t very long lasting. He stated in a bulletin titled treated wood in raised bed gardening scientific evidence and data have shown that using pressure treated wood for raised bed or box gardening is safe to adults and children in terms of the plants grown and used in these containers he further explains all chemicals in consumer products have a toxicity. Dustytoes on july 04 2012. Really useful information here that i will be able to apply in my organic raised bed gardens literally.
Wood is a very versatile material for vegetable gardens. So when i set out to create a set.