CEDAR FRAMES

Hi Bev395 and welcome. The beds look GREAT!

Beav395 wrote:Hello Gardeners

I'm new to the forums here.

...

Welcome Beav395! That SFG bed looks great. Best wishes...

That is gorgeous! I would love my boxes to look like that. Can't wait to see what treasures you grow in there.

deriter wrote:Beav395, all I can say is just way cool. Looks like you are off to a very good start. And I guess I am new here too, but I want to say welcome to the forum too. My guess is the redwood will out last my cedar wood that I used.

Don't worry Deriter (retireD backwards? )! Both are insect-resistant and rot-resistant, as long as you have lots of the heartwood. Where it is white is where you will have issues, if any. I would have MUCH rather had mine out of redwood instead of the cedar I was able to find out here (former NorCal girl, need my redwoods any way I can get them!) but my cedar boxes will have to do. If the cedar doesn't last, we can both rebuild and commiserate together!

GG

Yep Goosegirl, you figured it out. Deriter is retired spelled backwards. I thought it was clever. I retired last summer in June.
The wood I have does have a lot of white color and not so much of the red or darker color. So maybe this is the problem. As I said earlier, the boards are still good, its just that on the edge that was down is starting to get little cracks in it like its starting to go down hill. Just guessing, I'll probably get another 4 or 5 years more out of them. Maybe more even.

deriter wrote:Yep Goosegirl, you figured it out. Deriter is retired spelled backwards. I thought it was clever. I retired last summer in June.
The wood I have does have a lot of white color and not so much of the red or darker color. So maybe this is the problem. As I said earlier, the boards are still good, its just that on the edge that was down is starting to get little cracks in it like its starting to go down hill. Just guessing, I'll probably get another 4 or 5 years more out of them. Maybe more even.

My cedar boards have a whole lot more whitewood than I would like, but for the price (less than $2 a board) the price was right and I have no problem building more in 5 years or so! This spring will be my second season and the boxes look just fine, so I am going to see how long I can keep these cheapies going!

GG

This rotting of wooden frames be they pine or cedar etc etc. triggered something in my head.



Any wood ( the vast majority ) that is on wet ground at or below the dewpoint. ( about 8 inches from the ground up where dew forms ) will rot unaided in about seven years.

My fifty bee hives had wooden legs made of cedar and the only way I ever found of stopping them rotting was to stand each leg on an impervious barrier of either several folds of thick building polyethene about two inches bigger than the leg foot print or stand them on old 1 inch thick 4 x4 inches floor quarry tiles.

This kind of indicates to me that you might find it worth while to have some sort of 3 or 4 wide long lasting water proof membrane under the point of contact edges with the earth for each frame or slip some cheap kitchen wall tiles under the edges so easy evaportation can take place.

Over watering might also be part of the problem as the excess will percolate down to the bottom of the frames .. those tiles & that membrane might just help keep it off both sides of the bottom edges.

When refurbishing 100 yr plus homes I always noticed that the skirting boards were painted on both sides in houses where the boards were still in good condition , the back side being done in pink or white lead before the boards were fixed in place .

I also found that even in modern quality homes they had the back of the skirting boards painted in a matt cream safe paint to keep damp out of the wood .

As I have all my beds made from inpervious engineering bricks and water proofed mortar i'ts not a problem I'm likely to have so perhaps one of the new brave hearts might like to experiement as they build their additional beds .

Bricks, cement cap blocks, etc. might work as well maybe,,,,,,,,,,,,

The home improvement stores are starting to carry rot-proof composite lumber, either pvc, vinyl, concrete, or composite. All those options may last a lifetime, but may cause some connection issues as well as blow one's budget.