Pressure Treated Wood For Raised Garden Beds? - GardenFork

Arsenic based pressure treated wood is no longer sold in the U.S., there are two new copper based woods now sold. These are the kind we are talking about for raised beds.

Amazon and some other links are affiliate links, we get a small finder's fee for referring purchasers to their sites. Its part of how we pay for producing GardenFork

Produced by GardenFork Media LLC ©2015 all rights reserved

GardenFork Media LLC
PO Box 130
Colebrook, CT 06021

Music: Happy Hour, Composed by Dale Herr (ASCAP) , Toast Factory Publishing (ASCAP) Recording Licensed from the UniqueTracks Production Music Library Inc.

[Terri_Stauffer]

So glad to come across video. Taking down old decks and want to reuse wood to make raised beds. Was told could not use treated wood for raised beds. I did some research and it said to line with plastic, but is I will just use the wood, no plastic. Thank you.

[raymondflower]

As a carpenter for 15 years I’ve eaten probably 10 full 2x4s worth of treated saw dust and I’m fine.

[robertkunz]

I am going to make a raised bed. I feel it is o.k. to use the treated wood. I have listened to a few
articles on the computer. Your article was very helpful to me. I am hearing the same thing other
places on line so I feel safe using treated wood. Thank you for such a helpful article. If the area
infects the plants they won't live anyway, and I won't get any fruit anyway. Thank you again.

[stuartsullenbarger]

Hi Eric ..I put my raised bed in about 12 years ago, and used the green tinted treated lumber, and I plant out about a foot from the wood...haven't had any health issues yet...I stained the outside of the wood for looks, and besides a little warping, there still hanging in there...I used 2x12, s....happy gardening..

[rryder]

I built mine about 2 years ago, with the new pressure treated lumber, and it's held up fine.
When I heard it was no longer treated with arsenic I saw no problem with using it.

[valentine_puppy]

Anyone else notice the dog like WTF? Where did it go. 😂

[davidoconnor]

CCA is still sold here in Australia. I just bought a bunch of fence paillings that are CCA

[grants]

I found using 5/8" dog ear cedar boards for fencing, 6 foot boards run on sale for about a buck, regular price is $1.85 or so... pretty cheap and you get natural benefits of cedar not rotting as fast as pine. My 2" untreated pine boards are almost all rotted through at the bottom after just 4 years. My 5/8" cedar beds, now gray in color, are not rotted at all after 4 years. Also, I inverted all my pine beds this year (flip them upside down) to put the rot on top and fresher wood back on the bottom. Thanks for the video.

[kosycat]

When i need to replace my beds I'm just gonna build around the old ones and let it rot out.it still have a while to go but i used regular no treated pine

[JustinDeri]

Eric, on my farm, per organic standards, I'm not allowed to leave plastic down on the soil for more than 1 season/year. The idea is that it becomes an "input" as it starts to break down. Still, if I had a home garden, I'd probably not worry too much about a plastic liner like you showed. I use hemlock because here in Maine it is cheap and allegedly has some resistance to rot...I'm skeptical of that. So, I suppose it just means I'm cheap.

[scottlori]

Arsenic in treated (CCA) lumber was banned starting in 2004. Today it's ACQ and is fine to use. The food you grow will be so much safer & better for you than store bought.

[stevetrivago]

I believe you, I just don’t trust the EPA or the FDA .. but I’m considering it.. thanks

[geolev]

I also tried the pine and linseed oil method and by the second year I had a pretty nice termite infestation. The beds lasted about 3 years. My new raised beds are made with these copper treated boards and they are doing great after 3 years.

I also did a lot of the same research you did and one thing I found that I don't think you mentioned is that the copper will leach out of the wood over time but that it doesn't travel far and was at very low levels. If I remember correctly there was no detectable presence of copper, beyond natural background traces an inch or two away from the board. So I just plant a few inches away from the edges.

[janetsclar]

Our redwood beds, after 14 years, pretty much looked about as rotted as yours. We built more of the same in a different area. Pricey initial outlay, but over the life of the bed (and all the savings from never having to have a gym membership) it works out fine -especially when we use permaculture/lasagne bed practices and put the old rotting wood in the bottom of the new beds. Inside a greenhouse I have some in-ground narrow beds up against pressure-treated framing boards. The first bed I researched and lined the wood with plastic. The later ones I didn't bother. I figure if I can keep water off the boards then there's little chance of any chemicals transferring to the soil. It's been several years so far, and as Marilyn said, we're not too brain dead, yet!

[JAHHIM]

Greetings, I love my black lab Tank. He monitors my glucose through scent recognition. If I have hypoglycemia he nudges me under my chin with his nose. He smells the adrenaline dump that goes with that fluctuation in glucose levels. He is my steady gardening companion out here on Whidbey Island WA. We are redesigning the garden this year and cedar is what I have used in the past. Be well keep throwing that ball and thanks for the tip on copper.

[JulianOwens]

Thanks for info, just built mine and Home Depot confirms ban of arsenic pressure treated lumber 10+ years ago. Line my beds anyways.

[bookooc]

My late black lab would eat anything, including any kind of wood. Had to keep the PT wood we used for my deck away from her. That was 20 years ago, so bad PTW. She would just go for a tree limb instead. Love your videos and the dogs.

[robrob]

FYI Here in NJ, I have a vegetable garden with a 4x4 boarder; 3 4x4's on each long side, and 2 4x4's on each short end. This garden (and 4x4 boarder) is about 12 to15 years old. I recently decided to build up the boarder and add another layer of 4x4's on top of my existing boarder. 9 out of the original 10 4x4 boards around my garden were in perfect condition! (over 12 years of sitting against dirt, often wet) Only one board had small signs of rot! I reset the original boarder and added another layer of 4x4's on top of the existing 4x4 boarder. It looks and functions great! Couldn't be better!!!!
Also, I purchased all 10 new 4x4's from Home Depot's "cull lumber" rack. At 8.60 each, this would have cost me $86 ! At 70% off, this ended up costing me $25 ! The boards all had some tree bark still on 1 or 2 of the edges, and were not up to par with standards. They were NOT bowed at all, so I was able to turn the deformed looking edge to the inside of the garden, and the final result looks professional!

[MrPilcher]

In Australia  we have an 8 X2 sleeper  that is CCA treated  what I started doing was planning the timber to remove the splinter the used a 200Um builder fil to create a membrane

[heavymechanic]

I used deck boards made from treated southern yellow pine as a border to my garden, filled with soil. A guy in Washington state did the same to build his worm bins, it must be OK.