Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Grubbypaws on April 23, 2024, 15:55

Title: safe wood for raised beds
Post by: Grubbypaws on April 23, 2024, 15:55

I need to replace a 2.4m plank in one of my Harrod Horticulture raised beds as it has rotted through. I have just gone to their site and it will cost me £68 for a single plank! This seems a lot but there is also information about the non-toxic preservative used to treat the wood so that it is plant and human safe and does not contain chromated copper arsenate.

I dont want to pay over the top for a plank of wood but I also want to garden safely. As lots of you will have made raised beds, can you give me any adivice please.

Title: Re: safe wood for raised beds
Post by: wighty on April 23, 2024, 17:27

We went to a local reclaimation yard and got a couple of old scaffold boards to do ours.  Still going after about ten years.  (As an aside, did you know that in 'olden days' telegraph poles were soaked in cyanide for up to four weeks to preserve them! :ohmy:)

Title: Re: safe wood for raised beds
Post by: KalisDad on April 23, 2024, 20:08

we've been using this on not just our beds but our shed aswell, 3 years in and all well, used on some white pine floor boards that I used for a herb garden and no issues.
https://www.gardening-naturally.com/eco-wood-treatment

Title: Re: safe wood for raised beds
Post by: AnneB on April 24, 2024, 09:10

Quote from: Grubbypaws on April 23, 2024, 15:55

I need to replace a 2.4m plank in one of my Harrod Horticulture raised beds as it has rotted through. I have just gone to their site and it will cost me £68 for a single plank! This seems a lot but there is also information about the non-toxic preservative used to treat the wood so that it is plant and human safe and does not contain chromated copper arsenate.

I dont want to pay over the top for a plank of wood but I also want to garden safely. As lots of you will have made raised beds, can you give me any adivice please.

Tanalised wood no longer uses CCA as a preservative.  It was banned some time ago. The RHS recommends it for raised beds.  So I think the information you quote is out of date.
We used untreated wood - old scaffolding planks like Wighty, when we built our beds in 2010.  They are now rotting away, so lasted nearly 14 years. 
We are replacing with the same and in some cases building beds with old paving slabs pushed into the ground on end.  No rotting there.
I don't think you need to spend that much money on a plank of wood.  I certainly wouldn't.