What are folks using as the framework of their raised beds?
I'm trying some 2x10's rough hemlock pine.Be interesting on how long they
last in zone 5 Western Massachusetts.
Is the new copper treatment for pressure treated lumber any safer than the
old arsnic pressure treated lumber?

Thanks
Jerome

"JRYezierski" wrote in message
...
What are folks using as the framework of their raised beds?
I'm trying some 2x10's rough hemlock pine.Be interesting on how long they
last in zone 5 Western Massachusetts.
Is the new copper treatment for pressure treated lumber any safer than the
old arsnic pressure treated lumber?

Thanks
Jerome

I did some research recently on this. Click on the following links:

http://search.gardenweb.com/search/n...aised+beds&p=2

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...=Google+Search

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/...265528445.html

http://uk.f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/...&.dnm=4175.jpg

I am thinking of using milk crates so that I may plant carrots and potatoes
and not waste space. Good luck!

Fito

In article ,
"JRYezierski" wrote:

What are folks using as the framework of their raised beds?

we got our hands on a western red cedar (Thuja plicata) pallet and will
try that

I'm trying some 2x10's rough hemlock pine.Be interesting on how long they
last in zone 5 Western Massachusetts.

Tsuga? Not very long, I'd wager.

Is the new copper treatment for pressure treated lumber any safer than the
old arsnic pressure treated lumber?

Cu or Zn bromate? By warnings posted on the label, no.

"JRYezierski" wrote in message ...
What are folks using as the framework of their raised beds?
I'm trying some 2x10's rough hemlock pine.Be interesting on how long they
last in zone 5 Western Massachusetts.
Is the new copper treatment for pressure treated lumber any safer than the
old arsnic pressure treated lumber?

Thanks
Jerome

I used aged pressure treated wood with an aluminum liner between the
wood and the soil. The sides are about 18" tall with 24" aluminum
roofing flashing nailed all the way around the inside of the frame.
Been using the same bed for about 20 years now and it's still in
pretty good shape.

Bob

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 09:02:09 -0400, "JRYezierski"
wrote:

What are folks using as the framework of their raised beds?
I'm trying some 2x10's rough hemlock pine.Be interesting on how long they
last in zone 5 Western Massachusetts.
Is the new copper treatment for pressure treated lumber any safer than the
old arsnic pressure treated lumber?

Thanks
Jerome


I haven't done any raised beds here because I have flood irrigation
and I have slugs and putting anything, wood or rocks the garbage can..
on the ground usually shelters slugs. I have little bitty gray ones,
and I have the big brown speckled ones.. they can get 8 - 12 inches
long. However, my father had sandy ground, and no flood irrigation.
He used scavenged wood. Whatever he could find. Pallets, plywood,
discarded metal held in place with whatever he had to pound into the
ground.

I realize not everyone wants to have a junky looking garden like that,
but others...like my dad.. are only looking for cheap functionality.

You can use the boards on a pallet to make quite a few things. The
ends are usually hardwood, some are pretty decent oak you could clean
up and carve or somehow use to make furniture or art.. or when cleaned
up, sawn up and used to make those glued together pieces of wood to
make a bigger piece of wood.. like cutting boards.. but I think those
are usually maple. But I digress... the wood can be truly useful if
you're imaginative.

Granted it may not last forever, but a lot of folks end up moving
things around in their gardens several times before they finally come
up with a design they are finally happy with, and some of us are never
happy and want to move things every 2 or 3 years anyway.

It's amazing how you can spot something down an alley while you've
just flitted by it quickly. Your peripheral vision field will snatch
the image and quickly beat it to your brain.. hey! wasn't that a stack
of wood that looks like it was going to be tossed.. and you whip
around the block and have a look-see and check with the owner and get
permission to come back and get that.. if you aren't dressed/driving
the right vehicle at that moment. There are always building sites
that have scrap wood, people tearing out stuff and tossing things you
can make cold frames, raised beds, or any number of things for cheap
to free. I'm poor, and the daughter of parents who lived through the
depression, and my dad hauled trash for years until the city went
"franchise only" and put him out of business overnight. So, I have
the salvage/save/recycle gene, and while I've learned not to save
every cottage cheese carton now.. I still hate to let go of things I
know are useful or will be. When I was growing 40 tomato plants and
15 or 20 peppers, and any other plant I set out, I saved toilet paper
rolls, paper towel rolls, some cottage cheese cartons or yogurt
cartons ..although I preferred things I wouldn't have to pick out of
the garden later, to keep the cut worms away from transplants.

So I vote for Recycled/salvaged/found objects for making raised beds.
Also, what height? Dad made his high enough that he didn't have to
stoop over any further than he was already bend at 90 to 93... about 3
to 4 feet tall between digging dirt out of the paths and putting it in
the beds. Just try to find enough of one type of material if you need
some degree of uniformity. ;-)

Janice

Janice wrote in message . ..
On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 09:02:09 -0400, "JRYezierski"
wrote:

What are folks using as the framework of their raised beds?
I'm trying some 2x10's rough hemlock pine.Be interesting on how long they
last in zone 5 Western Massachusetts.
Is the new copper treatment for pressure treated lumber any safer than the
old arsnic pressure treated lumber?

Thanks
Jerome


I haven't done any raised beds here because I have flood irrigation
and I have slugs and putting anything, wood or rocks the garbage can..
on the ground usually shelters slugs. I have little bitty gray ones,
and I have the big brown speckled ones.. they can get 8 - 12 inches
long.

(snip)

Did you see the recent article about caffene being poison for slugs?
Saving your old coffee and tea grounds, making a brew, and spraying
the area to be protected is supposed to kill or run off the slugs. And
it doesn't have to be a strong brew - as little as 2 per cent caffene
is enough to kill them.

Bob

"Janice" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 09:02:09 -0400, "JRYezierski"

usually shelters slugs. I have little bitty gray ones,
and I have the big brown speckled ones.. they can get 8 - 12 inches
long.

You have slugs a foot long?? In Boise?? Sorry if I sound incredulous, but
I've never seen a slug over an inch long, even when my dad put in a new
sprinkler system and watered almost constantly, and before that, I'd never
seen a slug in Idaho.

"tmtresh" said:

and I have the big brown speckled ones.. they can get 8 - 12 inches
long.

You have slugs a foot long?? In Boise?? Sorry if I sound
incredulous, but I've never seen a slug over an inch long

I don't know about a foot, but we get them several inches long in NC.
--
McQualude

(Bob S.) said:

Did you see the recent article about caffene being poison for slugs?

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...6F5-48B2-1D1A-
8B07809EC588EEDF&catID=1

http://tinyurl.com/24ywu

for more info
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=us...caffeine+slugs

Saving your old coffee and tea grounds, making a brew, and spraying
the area to be protected is supposed to kill or run off the slugs. And
it doesn't have to be a strong brew - as little as 2 per cent caffene
is enough to kill them.

According to the article a cup of instant coffee contains about 0.5%
caffeine, brewed coffee has more but as little as 0.1% will deter 1/4
slugs from feeding.

I've been throwing my grounds in the compost bin. We have a nasty slug
problem on the back deck, maybe I'll start throwing the grounds on the
ground and see if it deters the nasty little beasts.

Some of the articles mention that plants are affected by caffeine just
as people are so too much caffeine can cause harm to your plants.
--
McQualude

I use old scafolding planks from a construction site, they stand up to all weathers and I`ve never noticed a problem with toxicity

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 04:32:38 +0000, McQualude wrote:

(Bob S.) said:

Did you see the recent article about caffene being poison for slugs?

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...6F5-48B2-1D1A-
8B07809EC588EEDF&catID=1



Saving your old coffee and tea grounds, making a brew, and spraying the
area to be protected is supposed to kill or run off the slugs. And it
doesn't have to be a strong brew - as little as 2 per cent caffene is
enough to kill them.

According to the article a cup of instant coffee contains about 0.5%
caffeine, brewed coffee has more but as little as 0.1% will deter 1/4
slugs from feeding.

If you'll search the archives of this newsgroup you'll see that I've been
advocating / vigorously defending this for quite some time. Moreover, I
have referenced the U of H study all along. The article you guys are
linking to is hardly new information.

My technique has been to sprinkle FRESH grounds on the soil surface after
signs of slugs (either damage or trails ... there are two photos of trails
on my gardening website) is spotted. Use of fresh grounds is not mentioned
in the U of H report. Their study focused on spraying amphibians with
carefully calibrated solutions. My study did not care what the precise
dose was, only what the practical application parameters might be.

I only have to do this once a year. I never see signs of slugs afterward
.... not in the same season, anyway. I use about 1 pound, or slightly more,
per 100 sq. ft. evenly broadcast on the soil surface (do not work into the
soil) in the evening. After nightfall, the slugs come out to feed and are
never seen again.

I believe I am getting about 100% kill off and that the following seasons
slugs are immigrants from the public alley behind my garden. If I were
getting less kill off than that, I would expect a resurgence in growth in
the same year. Moreover, I would expect the technique to quit working as
caffeine-tolerant slugs bred with each other. So far, it continues to be
reliable. This is my third year of using this technique.

I have taken a lot of vary public flack about this and most certainly DID
publish my findings -- right here -- so I am not getting a warm fuzzy
feeling right now at seeing this gussied up report.

That link is about two years behind this newsgroup and nearly three years
behind ME.


Bill

--
http://cannaday.us (genealogy)
http://organic-earth.com (organic gardening)
Uptimes below for the machines that created / host these sites.
20:56:01 up 12 days, 4:41, 4 users, load average: 0.82, 0.43, 0.31
20:50:00 up 113 days, 2 min, 1 user, load average: 0.17, 0.07, 0.02

Anonymous said:

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 04:32:38 +0000, McQualude wrote:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...6F5-48B2-1D1A-
8B07809EC588EEDF&catID=1

According to the article a cup of instant coffee contains about 0.5%
caffeine, brewed coffee has more but as little as 0.1% will deter
1/4 slugs from feeding.

If you'll search the archives of this newsgroup you'll see that I've
been advocating / vigorously defending this for quite some time.

I'll let you do the research if you think it's worth reading.

My technique has been to sprinkle FRESH grounds on the soil surface
after signs of slugs

I thought of doing the same after reading the article.

My study did
not care what the precise dose was, only what the practical
application parameters might be.

You use the word 'study', do you mean under controlled circumstances with
reproducable results? Why don't you post it on your website? Then it's
handy for anyone to take a quick look.

I only have to do this once a year. I never see signs of slugs
afterward ... not in the same season, anyway. I use about 1 pound, or
slightly more, per 100 sq. ft. evenly broadcast on the soil surface
(do not work into the soil) in the evening. After nightfall, the
slugs come out to feed and are never seen again.

My wife and I decided to try this after I mentioned the SCIAM article,
especially around our deck which hosts battalions of slugs. We have had
some success beating them back by sprinkling salt around the house and
under the deck but that won't work in the garden since the salt would kill
the vegetables.

I believe I am getting about 100% kill off and that the following
seasons slugs are immigrants from the public alley behind my garden.

That would be awesome. We have a serious slug problem.

If I were getting less kill off than that, I would expect a
resurgence in growth in the same year. Moreover, I would expect the
technique to quit working as caffeine-tolerant slugs bred with each
other. So far, it continues to be reliable. This is my third year of
using this technique.

I am anxious to try it. We are already saving our coffee grounds. I'm not
sure though that slugs/caffeine are analogous to bacteria/antibiotics, but
that would be an interesting part of the study.

I have taken a lot of vary public flack about this and most certainly
DID publish my findings -- right here -- so I am not getting a warm
fuzzy feeling right now at seeing this gussied up report.

That link is about two years behind this newsgroup and nearly three
years behind ME.

You get a gold star.
--
McQualude

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 11:46:16 -0600, "tmtresh"
wrote:


"Janice" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 09:02:09 -0400, "JRYezierski"

usually shelters slugs. I have little bitty gray ones,
and I have the big brown speckled ones.. they can get 8 - 12 inches
long.

You have slugs a foot long?? In Boise?? Sorry if I sound incredulous, but
I've never seen a slug over an inch long, even when my dad put in a new
sprinkler system and watered almost constantly, and before that, I'd never
seen a slug in Idaho.


Sorry I'm slow to answer, haven't managed to get to the groups this
past week. Yup they're the brown speckled ones, they usually aren't
stretched out that far, but some of them over the years have been that
big. I've had them come in on the bottoms of the trash cans .. as
they crawled up under there to hide.. I had a box turtle years ago who
was clawing at the garbage can and couldn't understand why, until I
tipped it up and saw the slug.. turtle didn't care once he saw it.

I went out another time after dark and there were two slugs "chasing"
one another around on the side of the house.. some sort of 'courtship"
I imagine, they weren't a foot long.. but it's not unusual to see them
6" and over. Just the occasional one now and then is in that foot
range.. and I guess when they're lounging.

There are lots of the little gray slugs here too, they would climb to
the top of a 5' tall dahlia just to eat holes in the petals and down
by dawn. That's why I'd like to find some kids that catch tadpoles
and get them to catch lots of them that had just gotten all 4 of their
legs and starting to hop out of the water and turn them loose in my
yard. A bunch of fence swifts and some 5 line skinks to live on my
shed and garden to eat the bugs. Alas I know no such children and all
the places I used to catch them are more than likely some housing
development now.

*sigh*

Janice

If you were looking.... what would you be looking for?

susan, who wonders if little insects clutching their throats would be a
possibility?

YT2095 wrote:

JRYezierski wrote:
*What are folks using as the framework of their raised beds?
I'm trying some 2x10's rough hemlock pine.Be interesting on how long
they
last in zone 5 Western Massachusetts.
Is the new copper treatment for pressure treated lumber any safer
than the
old arsnic pressure treated lumber?

Thanks
Jerome *

I use old scafolding planks from a construction site, they stand up to
all weathers and I`ve never noticed a problem with toxicity
--
YT2095
Say it with Flowers,,,Give her a Triffid
------------------------------------------------------------------------
posted via www.GardenBanter.co.uk

If you were looking.... what would you be looking for?

susan, who wonders if little insects clutching their throats would be a
possibility?

YT2095 wrote:

JRYezierski wrote:
*What are folks using as the framework of their raised beds?
I'm trying some 2x10's rough hemlock pine.Be interesting on how long
they
last in zone 5 Western Massachusetts.
Is the new copper treatment for pressure treated lumber any safer
than the
old arsnic pressure treated lumber?

Thanks
Jerome *

I use old scafolding planks from a construction site, they stand up to
all weathers and I`ve never noticed a problem with toxicity
--
YT2095
Say it with Flowers,,,Give her a Triffid
------------------------------------------------------------------------
posted via www.GardenBanter.co.uk