Raised Beds...

[WiZeR]

i phoned every local scaffolder in the area when i built my raised beds and was greeted with total bemusement. They all found it ludicrous that I might want their old boards.

[kirsty b]

I've recently got an allotment and completely new to this. I've sectioned it off into seperate beds with the idea of getting one ready for planting this year and take my time over the rest. However I went down to do a little more digging a couple of days ago and so that a large section of my plot was either completely flooded or water logged. I've decided that my best course of action is to convert the worst flooded area to raised beds. I'm told that if land is left untended for a while flooding can occur but my plot is on an old river bed so I'm guessing this is the norm when it gets a bit wet.

My plan is to get some scaffold boards and build some raised beds and dig a drainage ditch to atleast give some of the water someplace to go. Although I suspect that this will simply fill up. Having read some of the posts here on raised beds I've got a couple of questions.

1: I've done the usual ebay and googling but haven't come up with a cheap source for scaffold boards, can anyone recommend anything. i.e. has anyone had any luck just ringing up a scaffolding firm and asking if the have any old ones they're getting shot off?

2: Can anyone recommend any really good treatments for the wood? The water on my plot is reasonably deep and hangs around for quite a while so the wood will need a lot of protecting.


I did toy with the idea of concreate gravel boards, but these would be too heavy for me to work with and obtain.

Also does anyone else think it may be worth having a section for wanted ad's or for stuff people want shot of.

Have you thought about joining a freecycle group? All sorts of stuff ends up on there at some point.
Welcome to the vine
Kirsty

[myutopia]

Brilliant!!!

Thanks for all the help everyone. I'd never heard of freecycle before but a quick google produced a few groups in my area. Thanks for the advice on the paint from screwfix that should come in handy. I'll try a few places for the scaffold boards and once I've got a few pop round and get as many as I can. £2 for gravel boards is pretty good going, was that from a freecycle or just being in the right place?

Thanks again everyone

[pete10]

The boads came from my local garden centre in Reading six foot by 6 inchs. Going to build up 12
inchs high if it stops raining some time soon.
http://www.winnershgardencentre.co.u...e.htm?ipg=1938 . Iam sure
they branches around the country .

[Alison]

The new tanalith E treated tiimber has been available for abour 6 years with most of the big producers changing straight over to it. However the old tanalilised timber may still be in circulation in some suppliers. All tanalith E timber should be labeled as such.

To be fare the risks of arsenic leaching out is very remote and only really become a problem if the timber is burnt.

Thanks Piglet, think we (well OH really!) built the beds about the time of the change over and obviously we've no idea about any documentation now. Had never worried about it before until I saw the query in this month's GYO where they were I thought that they were playing the risk of arsenic up quite a bit so I was obviously concerned. It would be a nightmare to remove them so the decision is whether to empty the soil out and line the wood (as recommended in GYO) or to leave them as is. It would be possible to line - although it would mean having the beds out of action for a bit and I wouldn't really fancy doing it in winter when it would be best as I'm a bit of a weed sometimes. Alternatively, I could leave it as is and weight it up against the fact that we don't use any other chemicals so any veg is still better than a lot of the supermarket stuff................... All a dilema and any further advice would be appreciated!