Raised bed Qs and wood! - veggies and herbs

[milkymumma]

Hiya

Ok I have been planning on a total revamp of the garden, we have started with the removal of some very useless bushes and I have been digging up an area where the raised bed will go.

Now a part of the area for the bed had loads of like garden type gravel, so I skimmed the top off and removed all of the plastic underlay as I guessed it would be good to keep a thin layer or gravle there for drainage? Or am I wrong? and do you think it would be ok to use the gravel I removed in the mix of topsoil I use when doing the raised bed for drainage?

I then removed 'mind your own buisness' (hate that stuff!) from around the walls etc.

I found it all quite a task due to the spiders, oooo and hairy catapillers vile, I am such a wuss (not good for a wanna be gardner )

Now as for the raised bed itself, I was thinking of using some old pallets (they come from a marina) for the boarder or the beds, but my concern is chemicals? Do you think there would be anything in some old weatherd pallets?
If so do you think I would be ok to use non treated wood?

I really have worries over chemicals, I want to use the beds to grow herbs for my homemade products and to grow veg etc, so limiting contamination is quite important.

This is my first go after many years of nearly trying and then after such a good crop of tatties I had, they gave me the push to really give it a good go, and its a perfect time to get it all ready.

I am on a near exsistent budget too, so any advice on this would be great!!!


Thanks!!

[MKG]

My opinion, FWIW, is that the wood from the pallets will be just fine (wood preservatives tend to stay in the wood, or they wouldn't work very well). Others here will disagree - it all depends really on how strongly you feel about chemicals which wouldn't normally be where you put them.

But the REAL point of my post is that you may THINK you've got rid of the Mind Your Own Business ...

... but it'll do an Arnie on you

Mike

[milkymumma]

Ha ha yes I am sure it will be back!

Ok need to think more about pallets, it would save me a small fortune if I used them.

[Denzle]

Hiya

Ok I have been planning on a total revamp of the garden, we have started with the removal of some very useless bushes and I have been digging up an area where the raised bed will go.

Now a part of the area for the bed had loads of like garden type gravel, so I skimmed the top off and removed all of the plastic underlay as I guessed it would be good to keep a thin layer or gravle there for drainage? Or am I wrong? and do you think it would be ok to use the gravel I removed in the mix of topsoil I use when doing the raised bed for drainage?

I then removed 'mind your own buisness' (hate that stuff!) from around the walls etc.

I found it all quite a task due to the spiders, oooo and hairy catapillers vile, I am such a wuss (not good for a wanna be gardner )

Now as for the raised bed itself, I was thinking of using some old pallets (they come from a marina) for the boarder or the beds, but my concern is chemicals? Do you think there would be anything in some old weatherd pallets?
If so do you think I would be ok to use non treated wood?

I really have worries over chemicals, I want to use the beds to grow herbs for my homemade products and to grow veg etc, so limiting contamination is quite important.

This is my first go after many years of nearly trying and then after such a good crop of tatties I had, they gave me the push to really give it a good go, and its a perfect time to get it all ready.

I am on a near exsistent budget too, so any advice on this would be great!!!


Thanks!!

Hi,Ya Milkymumma,

Your pallets will be fine, as some of them only get a flash of preserver. Most dont get anything at all and are usually made from soft boxwood.
This wont contaminate any of your veg as, I suppose like other pallets they have weathered quite a bit, so you have no problem at all in using them.

All I can say though is they are tough to take apart as the wood usually splits. Most are fastened with ring barb nails. These are nails that have lots of rings down the stem, and once knocked in they are difficult to remove.

If I were you, for the sake of a couple of £££££s Go to B&Q and buy a crow bar. Thats the proper bar for removing nails and parting wood. One end is bent round and has a V in the end to get between the wood and put force on the nail. This will save some of your wood from splitting.

Anyhow, good luck with your re-vamp and I hope you get it the way you want.

Happy Gardening..... Denzle.

[grahamhobbs]

I'd question why you want raised beds, is there a very specific reason or have you just picked up on the fashion that somehow you can't grow things without them?
If you are going to make raised beds with timber, it is a waste of time constructing them from something that is going to rot in a few years. Pallets may not have any preservative in them at all and they are made of relatively thin and poor quality timber, the timber will not last that long.
In years gone by treated timber contained poisionous preservatives such as arsnic and was definitely not recommended for gardens but for the last 10 years (I think) this has been outlawed, although they still contain strong chemicals. If you are extremely wary of using treated timber then you will need to use hardwood (extremely expensive) or you can treat your wood, or buy wood treated, with Borax, this is safe but not cheap.
Concrete blocks might be a cheap option.

[milkymumma]

Hiya

I wanted raised beds for a few reasons, firstly I have bad knees and would like the soil area to be higher up so I don't have to go down on my knees too much. Part of the area where one of the beds will be has a concrete wall and the bed needs to be level or higher than it, otherwise it is restricted with what plants I can ut their due to hardley any sunlight. I have two chickens that free range at least a few hours a day, they are not jumpy (likely to jump up on anything) and will happily dig up anything they can easily walk onto. If it were raised they are less likely to scratch up all my plants, yes they could still jump up but I am not giving them an open invitation this way!!

I didn't know about wood being treated with borax so I will certainly look into this, also I didn't think about blocks but I have abit of a thing about them and the enviromental impact of concrete production.

Hmm ok some things to think about, thank you!

[oldjerry]

I'm a fan of raised beds ,(Damascan conversion a few years back),If you can find an Achitectural salvage place or junkyard or whatever,you might find some condemned scaffold planks(they last yonks)or best of all some old Armco (the barrier down the middle of a motorway)you'll need to beg borrow or hire an angle grinder,but I've bought it cheap in the past. Good luck with the project.

[citizentwiglet]

Re: Borax - I don't think you can buy it anymore, the EU have banned it, IIRC. I think there is a Borax substitute available, but I'm not sure what it's called. I seem to remember a thread about it about a year ago........

[citizentwiglet]

http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... 82&start=0

Thread about Borax being banned, and its replacement product....

[grahamhobbs]

Thanks for reminding us Citizenwiglet. Previously Borax was promoted as THE organic treatment for timber.

[citizentwiglet]

Nae bother, pleased to be of assistance!

Must admit, I love my raised bed. We have one in our community garden - roughly 23ft long by 4ft wide. Our garden is organic, so the bed was filled with Soil Association approved soil with a good working of garden produced compost, worm cast and basalt dust. With Fish, Blood and Bone added as and when necessary. We're far from self-sufficient with it, but it has saved us at least £5.00 a week on our veggie shopping by growing things like dwarf beans, carrots, kale, chard, salad leaves, swede and leeks. We've learnt lessons - we're only on year 1 - next year we won't waste space on swede, they're too big for such a small space, we'll do beetroot and turnips instead. We'll grow dwarf beans at home next year, and try peas in the bed instead. We haven't wasted space growing onions or potatoes in the bed - we buy onions (they're cheap enough), and we did our spuds in sacks at home (first earlies - lush - planning on a lot more sacks next year for a successional feast rather than a couple of months of lush potatoes).

Good things about raised beds - properly created with quality 'ingredients' - no hard digging, retention of essential nutrients in the soil, less weeding, less pests (no effects from slugs or carrot root fly, for example), easier to maintain, close spacing (most crops, excepting larger root crops can be planted at half the distance given on the packet).

Bad things: If raised beds are all you have, quantity can be a problem if you want a variety of stuff, you'll be hard pushed to grow all you need from a couple of beds. And rotation can be problematic if you only have one bed. And beds need watering more regularly - until leaf growth during the summer helps to shade the soil, if you are growing a lot of leafy veg.