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I'm looking to build a few raised garden beds for my wife. I've already done my research on how I'm going to construct them, but I'm running into a problem with the wood. I see that folks are uneasy about using treated lumber for potential chemical leaking. It seems the most recommended type of wood is Cedar or rough-cut Cedar. I'm more of an electrical with some decent handyman skills, so I'm not on top the gardening topic and or wood working. When I go to Home Depot or Lowe's, I'm not seeing anything like what people are recommending. So, my question is, what the heck are people in Connecticut using for lumber when making a raised garden bed?
I used regular old pine 2 x 12's. I'm confident they will last a decade easily.....no point in paying a fortune for redwood or cedar. They won't last much longer if at all.....
Do yourself a huge favor and skip using wood altogether. Use standard concrete blocks to build your beds with. Not only are they going to last forever, you can put plants in the block cutouts giving you even more planting space. Perhaps the best part of this method is the very low cost vs. lumber.
Since these blocks absorb moisture, you could paint the inside of them(dirt side) with a water impervious paint so they don’t suck all the moisture out of the soil.
Back when I was doing square foot gardening I built my beds out of pressure treated lumber. If you leave them set a full year a lot(not all) of the nasty chemicals will have leached out, then plant in them the 2nd year. At any rate, even with pressure treated 2x10’s the wood only lasted about six years before crumbling. That’s when I decided on using concrete blocks.
I'm looking to build a few raised garden beds for my wife. I've already done my research on how I'm going to construct them, but I'm running into a problem with the wood. I see that folks are uneasy about using treated lumber for potential chemical leaking. It seems the most recommended type of wood is Cedar or rough-cut Cedar. I'm more of an electrical with some decent handyman skills, so I'm not on top the gardening topic and or wood working. When I go to Home Depot or Lowe's, I'm not seeing anything like what people are recommending. So, my question is, what the heck are people in Connecticut using for lumber when making a raised garden bed?
Thank you in advance.
Rick
Go to a lumber mill or builder supply store. My HD and Lowes don't carry much as far as cedar either; almost all whitewood with some yellow pine thrown in, and nicer oak/poplar/pine boards sold for a fortune.
Cypress isn't a bad wood, nor is Ipe, Black Locust, Teak, or Redwood. Cedar is probably second to all of the above in terms of rot resistance but you have to account for cost as well.
I would look for Cypress fence pickets if you're looking for a deal.
We just covered this question in a master gardeners question. It appears that treated lumber does not appear to be a danger in raised gardens, but it will last longer than untreated.
Whatever you do, don't use hemlock. It will start to decay after two years in the wet. The lumber producers have come up with a cute trick: they produce dimensional lumber labeled "Hem/Fir". The premise is, that it might be either hemlock or Douglas fir. But I have learned that it's much more likely to be hemlock.
Years ago, I went to a builder's supply yard and asked for a long plank of Douglas fir. I split it up into strips that I used to make a kayak. Too late, I discovered that I'd been sold a piece of hemlock, instead. Hemlock also has the bad tendency to warp, when wet. That boat had to be put into a brace every year for a couple of weeks, to warp it back into being more or less straight. A neighbor had a very nice, but expensive cedar fence built, all around their property. All of the pieces were Western red cedar, except for six hemlock 2 x 4s that were the horizontal top-cap pieces on fence sections. Over time, they warped so badly, that they pulled apart the lattice sections below them and fell to the ground. The fence builders must have run short of cedar and bought those pieces of hemlock to finish the job.
Last edited by Steve McDonald; 03-27-2020 at 08:33 PM..
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