Rant: Everyone says to use treated lumber for outdoor projects but I found a big catch

I was building a simple raised garden bed last month and kept hearing from everyone online to always use pressure-treated wood. Then I looked up the actual EPA fact sheet on the different types of treated lumber. It turns out the most common stuff sold at big box stores contains copper and other metals that can leach into soil. For a vegetable bed where I'm growing food I eat, that seems like a bad idea. Has anyone else looked into this and decided to use cedar or something else instead?

2 comments

2 Comments

terry_mitchell1d ago

Figured I'd just eat my veggies with a side of heavy metals and regret, but thanks for ruining that plan for me too. Guess I'm shelling out for cedar now like some fancy gardener.

ray2101d ago

72 cents a board foot is what my local place charges for treated pine, and then I realized I was basically building a planter box out of what amounts to a chemical sponge. @terry_mitchell you beat me to the punch on that sarcasm but honestly I laughed because it's exactly how I felt when I found out. I swapped to cedar for my own beds and yeah it cost more, but I sleep better knowing my tomatoes aren't absorbing copper runoff. Plus cedar smells nice when you cut it, so that's a small win for my splinter-filled hands.