Gardening 2007, woot woot.

[RootSkier]

Depends how much you enjoy ingesting heavy metals. Mmmm....arsenic.

"Rufus Chaney at the USDA agrees with Bourquin about food safety. "There's no evidence that food safety is impaired by growing vegetables around CCA-treated wood." According to Chaney, high levels of inorganic arsenic in soil will kill a plant before there's enough arsenic in the plant itself for you to consider not eating it. Far more important is the risk of potential transfer of arsenic to skin and mouths, particularly for children, whose small bodies don't tolerate arsenic as well as ours do. Chaney points out that persistent leaching, however small, means that arsenic is continually coming to the surface of the wood, where it can easily be transferred to us or our children when we touch the wood. "There's just no way around it," Chaney says. "For me, this is the overriding reason not to use CCA."

http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/g00028.asp?

This is assuming your wood is CCA and not ACQ. The little red tag on the end grain will tell you what kind of treatment it has.

[Natedogg]

Now the question of course is: real issue or issue only in organic hippy land?

Good question... Whenever Ive built decks with my old man, I was always told to wash my hands after working with PT wood. Maybe I grew up with a bunch of hypochondriacs...

Hopefully its ok. Sorry to rain on your parade.

<edit> beat to it by Root, who obviously knows much more than I do (or put in the time to research).
I can tell you that Massachusetts considers arsenic to be above the risk standard when there is 21 ppm in soil. Ie., you will not be allowed to grow veggies in soil containing >21 ppm arsenic. I think MA takes a pretty conservative approach using conservative plant uptake values, frequency and intensity of human contact, and such... Not really sure how that relates to amount of arsenic from wood leaching into soil, but interesting quanitative info...

[Natedogg]

From Google (for us stooopit people)

Define: CCA
Chromated Copper Arsenate: A water-based wood preservative containing arsenic, chromium and copper which is used to protect against decay, insects and increase the life of the timber.

Define: ACQ
This preservative is made up of copper, a fungicide, and quaternary ammonium compound (quat), an insecticide which also augments the fungicidal treatment. Since it contains high levels of copper, ACQ-treated lumber is five times more corrosive to common steel, according to American Wood Preservers Association (AWPA) test results. It is necessary to use double-galvanized or stainless steel fasteners in ACQ lumber. The US began mandating the use of ACQ in end-consumer lumber in 2004

I'll see what I can find out from a risk assessor we use... He is a wealth of useless information, such as how many gallons of percloroethylene-contaminated water youd have to drink to equal the toxicity of Coke.

[lemon boy]

Root- Yeah, I found that same article and reading it they did a test to see how much the arsenic would potentially move about the boxes and the answer is: almost none.

Nate- no worries, I honestly hadn't ever thought about it before so thanks…I guess. It seems (with my 1/2hr of interweb research) that it doesn't pose an actual problem more of a theoretical problem. I am decidedly not an organic grower so I'm not super super picky about all of this stuff. The original boxes (two lower layers) were built with some wood I salvaged (pre-weathered) and the new layer does have a bit of excess treatment on it, I might go through the process of giving it a good washing down at some point although probably not till summer (the construction of the sunbox is such that it's weatherproof inside basically so no leaching would occur other than to drain down the outside of the beds). Per the article root found (N=1) only soil 0-2" from the wood approaches (20ppm) the MA limit, the rest is close to background levels. As a practical matter, relatively little gets grown w/in two inches of the sides of the boxes.

And then I was thinking about replacing the boards over time, which might happen anyway (wife wants to connect two beds for one super bed ) and some sites suggested trex or the like…and I thought to myself…hmmmmm plastic…hmmm petroleum products versus heavy metals?

Your find about ACQ mandates is interesting (saw that as well) in that I called the home despot and their PT lumber is….drumroll…CCA still so I'm wondering if that's not enforced? I would be interested in hearing from your risk assessor. Good to know it's that much more corrosive to steel.

I see garden beds out of PT lumber all over town.

[RootSkier]

The ACQ and steel thing is a major problem. There are tons of people building out there with standard and electrogalvanized fasteners in ACQ and the fasteners can decay with frightening speed. If anyone out there is building a deck with pressure treated, you should probably be using stainless fasteners.

[Ripzalot]

any ideas on what is wrong with this plant? is there anything i can do?

its been slowly yellowing over the last couple weeks. seems to be getting worse. i thought maybe overwatering, so i haven't watered it in several days. but it still seems to be going down. ideas?

[Natedogg]

original boxes (two lower layers) were built with some wood I salvaged (pre-weathered) and the new layer does have a bit of excess treatment on it, I might go through the process of giving it a good washing down at some point

Per the article root found (N=1) only soil 0-2" from the wood approaches (20ppm) the MA limit, the rest is close to background levels.

As a practical matter, relatively little gets grown w/in two inches of the sides of the boxes.

I would be interested in hearing from your risk assessor.

Washing and weathering are two different things. I think that weathered boards (like the bottom tiers in your pix) are probably fine, but Im not sure Id grow anything in brand-new pressure treated lumber boxes.

Im also not sure about the 'not growing within 2 inches of the sides of the box.' I plant everything in pots since I live in Boston where Im sure there is tons of fill and/or PAHs in soil from hundreds of years of manufacturing, and when I pull out my basil or tomatos or whatever in the fall, the soil in the pot is a massive root ball. Theres not one square mm of space not completely wrapped by little white roots. The only plants that dont seem to do that are the jalapenos--their roots dont seem to grow out much--which is probably why my pepper yield sucks.

That being said, I mentioned in my above post how conservative the MA regulations are. I checked with my boss (who highly adivsed to not grow veggies in anything built with pressure treated--but what does he know--he's just my pain in the ass boss ) and the story that I mentioned above was some study that showed you had to drink 400,000 liters of PCE-contaminated water (at 5 ppb or something) PER DAY to equal the cancer-causing risk of saccharin-containing soda. So you may be right--the effect of a few ppm of arsenic being taken up by a plant may be negligible.

I have an email in to the risk assessor to see what he says... Im very interested now!

The ACQ and steel thing is a major problem. There are tons of people building out there with standard and electrogalvanized fasteners in ACQ and the fasteners can decay with frightening speed. If anyone out there is building a deck with pressure treated, you should probably be using stainless fasteners.

Good to know...

any ideas on what is wrong with this plant? is there anything i can do?

its been slowly yellowing over the last couple weeks. seems to be getting worse. i thought maybe overwatering, so i haven't watered it in several days. but it still seems to be going down. ideas?

How well drained is that pot? Is it possible that the soil is not draining water and its drowning? My freakin basil does that. I water it fairly often and it starts yellowing and getting all fucked up. I have another pot that I use as a guinea pig and dont water it as often, and it does the same thing. I dont get it. I suck at gardening.

[lemon boy]

I think that eventually I'll try to wash the excess (chemicals) off the new ones. They'll weather shortly as well (probably leave them out for part of the summer).

We generally have two classes of plants: big and small. The big ones with roots like you describe are planted in the center usually and never form root balls even close to the edges. The smaller stuff does get planted somewhat closer but doesn't generate the root balls like that. Something I'll keep in mind though. I sent an email to my wood products expert, see what he sez

Perhaps what hurts your pepper yield has more to do with not getting hot/dry (air) enough. Mine never start to really roll until temps are running 95+ every day and traditional hot pepper areas in the US are relatively low humidity (see: Hatch, NM). Also, while I don't do so (might start), pepper plants produce best their second year IIRC.

Perhaps your other stuff is getting yellow cause it is root bound and you need bigger pots?

[Natedogg]

(probably leave them out for part of the summer).

Perhaps what hurts your pepper yield has more to do with not getting hot/dry (air) enough. Mine never start to really roll until temps are running 95+ every day and traditional hot pepper areas in the US are relatively low humidity (see: Hatch, NM). Also, while I don't do so (might start), pepper plants produce best their second year IIRC.

Perhaps your other stuff is getting yellow cause it is root bound and you need bigger pots?

Yeah, I would think a few months would weather those boards nicely.

Hmmmm, yeah, summers here dont get above 90 for more than a few days a summer, and usually pretty humid.

Also, what do you mean second year? I thought they were annuals???

My stuff yellowing or Rips stuff? I think you might be right, pot size probably has a lot to do with it.

[lemon boy]

Hmmmm, yeah, summers here dont get above 90 for more than a few days a summer, and usually pretty humid.

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/ptlk/1803.html

Maybe you could rig up some sort of tall sunbox to crank up the heat more.

BTW- you might try calling your county ext. office and just asking them. They'll have location specific info for you.

Also, what do you mean second year? I thought they were annuals???

I've always treated them as annuals too but (and for the life of me I can't remember where) somewhere I read that if you pull em out of the garden and into pots (for the winter) the second year gives you just a shit ton of peppers.

My stuff yellowing or Rips stuff?

Either/both I guess.

[Natedogg]

http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/g00028.asp?

Huh, finally got time to read this whole thing. Great article.

Maybe you could rig up some sort of tall sunbox to crank up the heat more.

I read that if you pull em out of the garden and into pots (for the winter) the second year gives you just a shit ton of peppers.

Good idea re: tall sunbox... Any idea if something as simple as saran wrap would work??

A shit ton is a lot of peppers, especially if its similar to a metric ton. Ill have to try that! Thanks!

[Natedogg]

Not the answer I was looking for (I was hoping he would have some cool facts), but Ill still pass it along. Sorry for the letdown:

Nate:

There are several recent publications concerning CCA-treated lumber and the risk posed by one constituent, arsenic. Most of these reports have to do with touching the lumber, like when a child plays on a CCA-treated wood jungle gym, or when adults work with CCA-treated wood. Some other reports attempt to determine how much arsenic leaches out of CCA-treated lumber. I found the following on MedLine (PubMed).

Zartarian V, Xue J, Ozkaynak H. Response to "A Probabilistic Arsenic Exposure Assessment for Children Who Contact CCA-Treated Playsets and Decks, Part 1: Model Methodology, Variability Results, and Model Evaluation". Risk Anal. 2007 Feb;27(1):5-6.

Barraj LM, Tsuji JS. A probabilistic arsenic exposure assessment for children who contact CCA-treated playsets and decks. Risk Anal. 2007 Feb;27(1):1-3; author reply 5-6.

Kim H, Kim DJ, Koo JH, Park JG, Jang YC. Distribution and mobility of chromium, copper, and arsenic in soils collected near CCA-treated wood structures in Korea. Sci Total Environ. 2007 Mar 15;374(2-3):273-81. Epub 2007 Feb 12.

Bessinger B, Redding B, Lowney Y. Comment on "release of arsenic to the environment from CCA-treated wood. 2. Leaching and speciation during disposal". Environ Sci Technol. 2007 Jan 1;41(1):345-6; author reply 347-8.

Jacobi G, Solo-Gabriele H, Dubey B, Townsend T, Shibata T. Evaluation of commercial landscaping mulch for possible contamination from CCA. Waste Manag. 2006 Dec 14;

Shibata T, Solo-Gabriele HM, Fleming LE, Cai Y, Townsend TG. A mass balance approach for evaluating leachable arsenic and chromium from an in-service CCA-treated wood structure. Sci Total Environ. 2007 Jan 1;372(2-3):624-35. Epub 2006 Dec 11

[shera]

Rideski-

Rent a roto from one of the rental equip places. They're probably not that expensive and come on a trailer (well..one big enough to do what you intend will).

If you're gonna roto your whole yard…I'd suggest getting a util locate first

Congrats again on the house Mir. (BTW, you better show for LBD)

Spent all w/e on the lawn & garden. Sprayed the apple trees, sprayed the lawn for crab grass. Weeded in the garden (fucking CRABGRASS!). Turned some new beds. Planted dried strawberries (need another 2 dozen or so). Ate the first asparagus (damn fine). Planted 6 tomatoes (all in W-O-Ws), 5 sets of cuces (wax hotcaps), a whole bunch of brocholi, okra, chard, basil, margorjam, parsley, cilantro, onions, microgreens (replanted cause we ate the first round yesterday), add'l sorrel, radishes and carrots. They should survive the cold tomorrow fine and hopefully that'll be it down here.

Probably wed. I'll go pick up some more asparagus & strawberry sets and it was determined by default that one of my sun box beds will get the peppers this year so I can go ahead and move on those.

Oh and I also added hinges and rotating struts to the sun boxes so they're easy to open & close.
I was a busy boy.

Sheesh, I'm glad I live in the high country and I get a little break before it's time to dig. You're making me tired already.

As for LBD, talk to Mr Man. He's the social coordinator.

[lemon boy]

Shera- I shot him a PM but I think he has me on ignore While you're busy digging in a month or two I'll be kicking back and eating the fruits of my labor BTW- thoughts on pressure treated lumber as a gardening professional?

Nate- thanks for checking anyway.

On the peppers, saran is probably way too flimsy but it'd be pretty easy to build a thin timbered frame and staple visquene (sp?) to it. Doesn't help your humidity issue but it'd certainly be hotter. Maybe just a roof of visquene (or the corrugated stuff like on my sunboxes it is about $16 for an 8' x 24" sheet….plus some black plastic mulch. Dunno otherwise. Last year I put some in the W-O-Ws to start and that seemed to help, those things get hot early.

We use visquene as a cover for the tomatoes once it starts frosting in the fall, got about an extra month out of them that way.

[Natedogg]

No problemo. Sorry it wasnt more of a help.

Hmmmm... I did a quick Google search and came up with:

Visqueen and Vinyl Matting. Also known as Polyethylene

Is Viqueen the same as poly sheeting? So if I build a little frame and staple 6mil poly to it, will all of my plants grow better? Or is direct sun better?

Also, you say black plastic mulch--you just mean the black plastic poly that you put around the base of the plants to keep weeds out? Does that help retain heat and grow the plant better?

Sorry for all the Q's, this is like a goldmine for refining my shitty gardening practices. I cant wait to get out of the city and have a giant backyard garden...

[Odin]

Is Viqueen the same as poly sheeting?

Almost.

Visqueen is a brand more than a type though. There are many different kinds of visqueen.

I have used the shit out of visqueen as it is very popular product at the oil terminal.

[lemon boy]

Yes, poly sheeting. Visqueen is like saying kleenex.

I'm sure direct sun is somehow better but I'm also sure that things will grow great beneath some clear plastic sheeting. Things are growing like crazy in my sun boxes.

If you put down some black plastic (poly sheet again I guess) it should do a few things for your peppers: retain soil moisture (even moisture prevents the black rot type spots) and heat both the soil and the surrounding air (black + sun = hot). I have no proof that would work but I know people use it to warm their soil beds in the spring so I can only imagine that it'd get good and hot in the summer.

[Jer]

I built my frames (4'x6', one or two feet high) out of ordinary lumber but slathered the wood with a couple of heavy coats of boiled linseed oil before assembling them. Sometimes I touch up the exposed, weathered surfaces a little, if I happen to have the oil out (it's good for treating tool handles.) They'll probably outlast my interest in frame gardening.

I wouldn't worry about treated wood - try not to inhale / ingest the sawdust while working with it, and don't burn it.

[lemon boy]

from my wood products expert:

Arsenic is a naturally occurring compound and found in most soils to varying concentrations. There have been some concerns voiced regarding detected concentrations in soils under decks built with CCA, but I know of no public health warnings or even specific recommendations about those soils or remediation.

You didn’t mention how long these beds have been there but I suspect the “release decay rate” is exponential and you are well passed the majority of any release into the soil. I would just enjoy the lettuceJ

[Natedogg]

from my wood products expert:

Right on.

The risk assessor wrote again with more:

Nate:

I just learned that the US EPA's SAP (Scientific Advisory Panel) is critical of US EPA's efforts to develop guidance on the use of sealants for Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA)-treated lumber to limit exposure and health risk. The SAP sided with industry to say that there is little health risk posed by CCA treated wood products, making sealing unnecessary.

In related news, U.S. EPA barred residential use of acid copper chromate (ACC)--treated wood products, citing potential health threat from inhalation and dermal contact with hexavalent chromium.

I guess it highly depends on what youre using.

[lemon boy]

thanks, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I think I'll just not worry about it too much.

[Natedogg]

thanks, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I think I'll just not worry about it too much.

Heh, sounds like a good plan.

[lemon boy]

Got a fair list of projects to hopefully get done Sunday (LBD = Sat):
Reattach my catalytic converter to my truck (what a PITFA)
Plant a couple new sets of asparagus, some rubharb, peppers, acorn squash, start cantas & watermelon seeds, strawberries
Move one of the sunboxes to a different box & hotcap/WOW the stuff in the first box
1st cutting on the mint
And I probably should mow.

Hopefully some Hamm's will be left over from LBD cause I have a feeling I'll need a few of them.

[lemon boy]

Garden seems pretty good, Sunday I put in all but a few things that'll go in this week probably.
WallaWalla onions, about 50 strawberry plants (some from the neighbors and some from the nursery), rhubarb, peas, hot peppers (6 plants), some acorn squash, watermelon and cantalope. The tomatoes seem okay and the cuces are sprouting. Cut and dried the first round of mint Forgot to lift the sunboxes and burned some sorel leaves yesterday but no biggie, we've already had sorel soup 3xs the apple trees seem okay, one of them is going OFF with blossoms and all of the various berry bushes seem to be going good, need to get some better supports erected for those though.

so...it looks like I did pretty damn good on my list...and my truck passed the E-test

Still to do:
New garden fence
Berry supports
Plant corn
Plant another couple of asparagus sets
2 acorn squash plants
Straw/mulch around certain items (once it gets hot)

[Ripzalot]

balcony garden 2007

basil, parsley, peppermint, rosemary, and a bunch of flowers