Treated lath board grid

[Uprooted]

So I tried to do everything "by the book" and was so proud of my little SFG. A friend came over (who is also doing this for the first time this year -- except she did 4 boxes!). She asked where I got the lathe boards, I told her Home Depot and she asked if they are untreated wood.

Am I dumb or what? I used untreated wood to make the box. Did it ever even occur to me to make sure the boards for the grid were untreated? Nope. I just assumed (yeah I know, never a good thing to do) that those cheap little boards were untreated. But looking at them now, they are darker than the untreated wood and I think they are treated. Soooo . . . the wood which lies right on top of the soil, gets rained on and watered, and touches the plants themselves is treated with chemicals. Should I be freaked out by this? Would you be? I'm not wild about redoing the grid at this point but it's still doable. Plants are not huge yet and I did not secure the grid at the joints, only tacked w/ little tacks to the box. If I were to take them up, at this point I'd probably replace w/ a string or twine of some kind.

Thoughts? Thanks -- here's a photo of my box just for the fun of it -- Kristina

[Furbalsmom]

Uprooted, I don't think I have ever seen treated lathe in the store. (Have to admit, I don't go to the lumber stores often) Since lathe is usually used indoors, it probably is not. The color difference may just be that it is not the same type of wood as your box.

Before you get too concerned, you might call HD and see if they even offer treated lathe. Perhaps this is an unnecessary concern for you.

[boffer]

Uprooted, I don't think I have ever seen treated lathe in the store....

Me either.

All of my boxes are made of treated wood. Some are lined with plastic and some aren't. I tend to worry more about the things that are slowly killing us that we don't know about yet.

[Furbalsmom]

Uprooted, I forgot to tell you what a nice job you did on your new box . The plants look very healthy. Wish we had some warm weather so my plants could take off too!

[Uprooted]

Thanks, everyone, I think I will stop worrying about whether the wood is treated and just carry on.

But Furbalsmom, I don't think everything is as healthy as it looks from a distance. If you look for jazzymaddy's "poor little sicky (green bean)" post you will see that I'm having some issues w/ my beans. I have started pulling radishes, though, and I have one pepper fruit and lots of arugula leaves which I'm going to start using in salads today!

[ETNRedClay]

Late reply... treated wood today is perfectly safe to plant in. It's treated with SALTS not arsenic. This is one of those myths like Vermiculite will kill you... there WAS a problem. Not any more.

[Junosmom]

I have to disagree that pressure treated wood is safe. I too made the mistake of buying pressure treated wood but only because it was labeled on only a few pieces in the bunder, stapled to the ends. I cut 6 pieces and was assembling the grid, only to realize they were treated and so I ripped them all out, pending research. I'm finding it's not a good idea to use it. here's one excerpt: According to Miles McEvoy, who works in organic certification with the Washington State Department of Agriculture, no pressure-treated wood is allowed in soils used to grow organic food. If you want to meet this high standard, choose a different material. Studies have shown that arsenic from wood treated with CCA leaches into the soil and that copper, although much less toxic, leaches from ACQ and copper boron azole (CBA, a variant of CA-B). this was posted on finegardening.com. i hope it was ok to copy and paste here, crediting their website. I figure educating more people is pretty important.

[Windmere]

Late reply... treated wood today is perfectly safe to plant in.  It's treated with SALTS not arsenic.  This is one of those myths like Vermiculite will kill you... there WAS a problem.  Not any more.  

Hmm.... I did not know treated wood is treated with salts.  This is very good to know.  However, to be on the safe side, I might verify this with the merchant selling the wood.

Like some others here on the forum, I opted to remove my grids.  This is my personal preference, but both with and without grids is pleasing to the eye.  Obviously, removing the grid makes wood treatment a non-issue.

Oh, and Uprooted:  Wow your handy work is gorgeous.  Congratulations on such lush growth!

Wind

[sanderson]

ETNRedClay, I've been searching for an hour for salts used to preserve wood. Can you post a link to this information?

Salt is a another one of those generic words. Salt is a by product of an acid and a base. Acid + Base = "salt" + water. Example H-Cl (hydrogen chloride) + NaOH (sodium hydroxide) = Na-Cl (table salt) + H2O (water)

Thank, Sanderson

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