waist high garden boxes from pallets

[LYCAN]

Just curious, is there any concern over the chemicals most pallets are soaked/treated with?

As many in the past have mentioned that's why they are no good for firewood

[luvmyvet]

good question Lycan,

but being able to stand up and still grow some stuff overides any concern on my part, lol

I am throwing caution to the wind this season, I have been organic gardening long before it was the cool, hip and groovy thing to do and now am considering using chemicals for weed/grass control and growing veggies in treated lumber boxes.

but as someone posted on one of these threads, sometimes a gardner has to do what they have to do in order to keep on going & growing..
the older I get the more it feels like combat gardening and I aim to win the war.

[goatlady]

The local pallet making company does not soak/treat their wood - it's fresh and clean and ready to use for anything. Maybe it's foreign made pallets? Never really heard of them being treated in any way. Been using them myself for years to make compost pile bins, fencing for piggies, myrid of uses for those lovely things.

[dilligaf]

i dont know that "most" pallets are soaked in anything.. we go through a LOT of pallets at work and they are all just raw wood..

[BugoutBear]

Just curious, is there any concern over the chemicals most pallets are soaked/treated with?

As many in the past have mentioned that's why they are no good for firewood

Just a few days ago I was at Lowe's looking for wood for a new garden bed. They had "heavy weather" deck boards which were clearly treated with an oily chemical = saturated with it. I don't think they would be a good choice for a garden bed.

[LYCAN]

i dont know that "most" pallets are soaked in anything.. we go through a LOT of pallets at work and they are all just raw wood..

I could be wrong, just something I've seen discussed in the past - I by no means am an expert, I was just curious is all

[luvmyvet]

Lycan, after you mentioned it possibly being treated wood, I went out and double checked our pallets, they sure look like plain "raw" wood to me, but honestly even if they were I would still go ahead and use them at this point, I like 'em! lol
we do have other wood here that is treated and has a greenish cast to it..

[dilligaf]

most "treatments" nowadays are a borate and/or copper sulphate based.. not terribly bad stuff no way..

[Faroe]

It isn't possible to have "too many" pallets. I have some compost bins made from pallets - that uses up four each right there, and it is also not possible to have too much compost. The junkiest of the pallets are strapped to the chain link fence for added privacy.

The strongest pallets are set on cinder blocks as table tops for the bucket gardens. We use the square 8"x8"x8" blocks stacked either one or two blocks high. For lettuce in buckets, two blocks high makes a waist high garden, for tomatoes, a pallet one block high is high enough. I had several of these last year, and am making more this year. These table top pallet gardens are also replacing the small round gardens make last year with wire fencing pulled in a circle, lined with plastic and filled with soil for waist high gardens. These were very pretty and productive, but required daily water. Too much maintenance.

Also, because the sun here is BLAZING, I'm always covering plants with sheets, old curtains, table cloths - anything big enough from the thrift store that can be had for a dollar, or so. I've been using circles of wire fencing to support the cloth above the plants. One of this week's projects is to nail some long straight "poles" - long, large suitable branches - to the corners of the pallets to support the sheeting as a canopy.

[goatlady]

Good ideas, Faroe.