The house we moved into has a raised bed notched into the slope in our backyard to make more flat usable space. It's likely been there for years. It was constructed using treated railroad ties. What affects, if any, does this have on my crops? Should I plant some minimum distance from the ties? Should I tear them out and rebuild the wall with concrete blocks or untreated wood (this seems the best solution, but alsot the most expensive)?
Thanks for any advice, I'm new at this and want to get things right.
I guess I'll be the first to break the bad news. The best thing to do is rip out all of the railroad ties and replace them with rocks or cinderblocks or some other type of retaining material. Those ties have been leaching their chemicals into the soil and by this time I doubt if there is any soil contained in that area that hasn't been affected. If your going to plant veggies there, you may want to look into replacing at least some of the soil as well. Big project I know, but better safe than sorry.
*We don't own the earth, we borrow it from our children*
Posts: 74 | Location: Zone 8, PDX Oregon | Registered: February 11, 2002
Keli speaks truth. You do not want to grow edible plants in a soil that has been exposed to pentachlorophenols.
otoh (on the other hand) (i have 2 hands!!!) you could remove the soil, let the structure dry out and apply an elastomer coating to the lumber, then replace the soil. A matter of damn or damned....
The key is your soil. Replace that! Some really annoying guy here has a website with 48 pages of relevant info on raised beds, his url is in my sigline.
In an advertising flyer distributed by a regional hardware/etc. store, I saw a sale on "used railroad ties". I thought I recalled reading somewhere that used ones may be OK to use for raised beds because they've lost that chemical treatment.
Is that true? I need something to contain a raised bed that won't cost too much, and those used railroad ties were pretty cheap.
There is an artical out there about used railroad ties being safe if they are really old. I wish I could remember where it was. Check the archives here, go back a bit. I myself had the same problem. I have very old ties and they made the perfect raised bed. I have eaten veggies, grown veggies, and even grown happy flowers in the cracks of my RRties. No problem so far. But like I said, mine are VERY old and falling apart. Geez, I wish I could remember where that study came from! Sorry. I think everything would be fine if you use them. (ha, ha, just kidding!) -Bada
