planning to do this in spring. wanted to know if you can use pressure treated wood for veg garden.have heard that it will have the treatment stuff seap out and into the veg.which I will then not beable to use. does anyone know if this it true thanks for any info you can offer

You may hear contradicting opinions but mine is that they are the only thing to use. Otherwise, they won't last long at all once the termites get to them. I have two beds that we put in in 1999 and they are still intact, except for what we've dismantled. We don't use them anymore because the trees grew so much they are now in shade. I never found a problem from them.

Cedar can be a better solution than PT wood. It is more expensive won't last as long as PT wood but will last much longer than other non-treated wood.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sparky,

You may have heard that old railroad ties---which were used to make such raised beds were used simply because they could be picked up for a song...real cheap. But new ones nowadays do not have the creosote treatment given them so you can use them with confidence.
You might still see such chemical use on telephone poles--anywhere where weather can influence their lasting for many years.

This is an interesting one, as the chorus seems mixed on the answer. I tried to find an answer on our website and saw this article, which recommends against it: http://blog.hgtvgardens.com/how-to-build-raised-beds/

There are also some options for prefab beds that might interest you as alternatives: http://blog.hgtvgardens.com/ri...abulous-raised-beds/

You could also use the pressure treated and then line with strips of pond liner rubber to tack to the inside and down under the board in the soil. This way any leaching of the chemicals would be outside your raised bed and not in the compost and soil you use inside of it.

thanks everyone.this might be a can of worms as to which wood to use. will keep checking stuff out while waiting for spring to get here.

Here's part of an article I found on this site:

http://www.gardeningblog.net/2...-raised-garden-beds/


CCA lumber contains chromium, copper, and arsenic. Chromium isn’t that toxic and only if we inhale it. Copper isn’t toxic to mammals, and in fact it is used in some skin creams and whatnot. Arsenic is the bad one, a known carcinogen, something to be avoided. Did you know the Romans used to use it as makeup? But people didn’t live long back then anyways.

The truth is arsenic is everywhere, it naturally occurs in soil and water and we eat small amounts of it everyday. The type in CCA wood (inorganic arsenic) is more toxic than the natural types, but just for reference, it is already in the food you grow.

According to this article, which is an excellent source. Studies have been done showing most leaching only occurs during the first rainy season, and that it doesn’t leach more than a few inches from the wood. Then, most plants do not take it up from the soil, the ones that do in only small amounts, and the arsenic is stored in the parts we do not eat. For instance carrots grown in a control bed had 0.05 parts per million arsenic, those in a bed with CCA lumber had 0.11 parts per million, a doubling, but still a very small amount, and carrots were one of the worst (root vegetables in general were the worst since that is where the plants store arsenic).

So, is CCA lumber safe? Well, you can leave it out for one year letting the initial leaching get over. Then you can build your beds and line it with plastic sheeting or roofing fabric or some other membrane to stop leaching, and you can not plant root vegetables in it or near the sides of it where the leaching take place.

All told, by looking at the science, I do not think anyone needs to worry about growing vegetables in CCA lumber beds. Sure, you could use cedar, and pay 8x the price (if you can even find cedar in a 2×10 or 2×12 which is my preferred size), but CCA would be fine.

Should you go out and buy CCA pressure treated lumber to build your raised beds? Well no, you can’t. You see, despite the tiny safety risk, CCA pressure treated lumber was banned for consumer use by the EPA in 2003. Any pressure treated lumber manufactured for consumer use after that date has no arsenic in it. The ban all told was a better safe than sorry issue grown out of kids touching/playing on/eating off of/ CCA playground equipment, not garden contamination, but nevertheless, for the last 5 years pressure treated lumber has not contained arsenic.

So, for those worrying about it, don’t. Save yourself a few hundred dollars and get pressure treated lumber for your raised bed or other garden projects. It is cheaper than cedar, and worry free. Even if it still contained arsenic it’d be pretty safe, but it doesn’t even have that small risk anymore.

Agree with health issues! Years ago when I didn't know any better I used the treated logs for my veggie patch but worried about health issues. My flower beds are now all raised but just border with rocks! I like the look a whole lot more.

thank you mgt for the info. will let DH see al the info on this post and go from there. he is the one that talked bout the pressure wood. thanks to all that offered info. happy holiday days to all and be safe

The concern with the old CCA, Chromated Copper Arsenic, pressure treated wood was that the Arsenic would seep out of the wood and if you made contact with that wood it might be ingested. The prinmary concern was with children since they tend to lick their hands often without washing. However, CCA PT wood is not supposed to be available to the average consumer today and new pressure treating materials, ACQ and several others, that are not supposed to leach Arsenic are what most of us have access to.
There is some concern that even these could leach heavy metals, but few plants will uptake these heavey metals. The problem is that they may be in the soil and be on the surface of the foods grown where they are easily washed off those foods.
Redwood, Cedar, Black Locust, and Osage Orange woods may also be available even though initial costs can be higher. Whether to use pressure treated wood is a personal choice and many people opt to not use them for raised beds where food crops will be grown. Many people think because they have not had any helath related problems from using pressure treated wood there is no problem, but it can take many years for any health problems to appear although in children it will not be as many years as for adults.

Even when the wood was being treated with the formula with arsenic in it, it was just recommended that any root vegetables be planted toward the center of the garden & not near the wood.