Is it safe to use pressure-treated lumber (ACQ) for raised-bed vegetable gardening?
For your 2 x 6″ frames, it’s best to use construction (B) grade 5/4 pine. After cutting to size, lay them out on a couple of saw horses and give them many coats of water base penetrating stain, saturating the end cuts. Air dry. Using the 5/4 pine instead of the 3/4″, will give you a lot more strength and stability. Make sure to use heavy duty corner brackets. They can be installed on the inside of the corners if you don’t want them visible, but will give more strength if installed on the outside. They can be spray painted black before installation to prevent rusting. If you have a raised bed that will ONLY be used for flowers, you can use pressure treated lumber. Just make sure the flower bed is not located close to a dug well. The chemicals used in pressure treating the lumber do leach out into the ground to some degree. I don’t know if you’ve ever used mushroom compost in your gardens. Once our raised beds were finished, we put a 3 to 4″ layer of mushroom compost down first, put in t
