Staining garden boxes

[Varty Yo]

So im building a ton of raised cedar garden beds for vegetables and i want to stain them. I ony plan on doing the outside but unsure what needs to be done to the inside. Do i line with poly? Do i just use landscape fabric? I dont want to risk poisoning my vegetables haha or my family. Am i over thinking this a bit? I have some stain left over from my cedar fence i plan on using.

 

[DGersic]

Build them as self irrigating boxes so you don’t have to water them.



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[joey1320]

You're over thinking it. Stain the outside, fill the inside with dirt and plant.

 

[bdbecker]

You're over thinking it. Stain the outside, fill the inside with dirt and plant.

Agreed... I did this on some planter boxes I made out of douglas fir 2x lumber 5 years ago and they've held up fairly well - cedar should hold up even better.

For the record, I knew douglas fir would eventually rot and need to be rebuilt. I was hoping they'd last 5-7 years and it looks like they should make it through another season or two.

 

[ripperd]

I made mine out of cheap pine. I lined the inside (but not the bottom) with plastic to prevent the pine from rotting. With cedar this would be unnecessary, it is naturally more resistant to rot.

 

[Dibiase77]

When I was 15-16 I made my mom a cedar planter for mother's day. I'm 30 now and I just helped her plant her flowers in it on Monday. No stain or poly. It's still going strong. No rotting or cracking. She just empties and covers with tarp every winter.

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[yeldogt]

I would leave them alone ....

 

[nafterclifen]

Care to share your plans? My wife has been bugging me to build one for her.

 

[XRlifer]

I built 4 of them last year. Picked up cedar bed 'kits' from ACE. I added doug fir 4x4 for the corners to get it belt high. Bought some 1x6 cedar boards to make the bottom with a vertical 2x4 for support. I also lined the bottom and sides with some left over landscaping fabric. They worked great last year, and already growing our veggies this year.
P.S. I consider myself lucky, the Mrs said I could build my shop if I would build her a few raised garden beds.......pretty good trade-off I think!

 

[Jazz1]

I built my raised beds with treated lumber. Available in a few shades of brown
I’ll stain posts eventually, they were old fence posts I been hoarding
Posts are tall I case of a frost we can tarp the garden

 

[bdbecker]

Is that a flower garden Jazz? If not, aren't you worried about chemicals from the PT leaching into your food?

 

[Dibiase77]

I don't have a picture of it or I would post it. Next time I'm over at her house I will take a picture. In the meantime I just went on Google and searched - free planter box plans. This is just one of many sites that will give you plans for free.


http://www.woodworkersworkshop.com/planter_boxes.php

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[Jazz1]

Is that a flower garden Jazz? If not, aren't you worried about chemicals from the PT leaching into your food?

Herb and vegetable garden, not concerned about leaching from pressure treated wood.

 

[Leeboy20]

Stain outside and top edge with semi transparent ...plant away

 

[old_smokey]

I've got four built with PT lumber in my yard. The chemicals in the wood don't have arsenic anymore (I think they stopped in 2003). I've found a few studies that detail what chemicals leach out and for how long, and which can actually be absorbed by plants and end up in your stomach. Long and short of it is, I'm not concerned. I did line half my boxes with HDPE dimple board, and the other half with vapor barrier, only because I had extra cut-offs laying around and I figured it would help prevent wet dirt from leaching out through the wood seems.

Test fitting:


And planted this past weekend.