treated wood

mtngirl 3/25/2011, 12:36 pm

I have a retaining wall made with railroad ties. How far away should I put a raised bed so the plants won't be affected by the wood ?

BackyardBirdGardner 3/25/2011, 12:47 pm

Personally, I wouldn't get to worked up about it. I would just put the SFG where I wanted it. It would be awfully hard, imo, to leech materials both through the ground and UP into the 6 inches of soil in your SFG.

From what I understand, the treated wood thing is for the wood you are actually using for your raised bed....more importantly, the inside borders of that wood that touches the soil/MM.

1airdoc 5/10/2011, 4:08 pm

I agree that the risk of toxins working across the soil and then up (against gravity and moisture flow) into your bed is minimal.

I am curious, however, regarding the recommendations to avoid use of modern treated lumber. Clearly creosote was toxic, and the old CCA-treated lumber contained arsenic. For the last several years, however, the arsenic-treated process has been banned, and current treatment involves the use of copper (ACQ). I understand that studies involving testing of plants grown adjacent to ACQ-treated wood showed no uptake of the preservative chemicals by the plants.

Is the recommendation to avoid use of this product based on suspicions that one day studies will show something different?

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