Building raised pressure treated garden beds

Pressure treated wood SHOULD NOT be used in a garden bed that will be used for FOOD crops....railroad ties are also NOT a good choice for this.

CEDAR is a wood that is recommended for raised garden beds.... landscape fabric on the bottom, below the garden soil will help keep out some weeds... but the weed seeds can and will get carried in by birds.. or blown in by the wind.

OUR favorite thing to use for raised garden beds are the galvanized horse/stock tanks/troughs.

It is recommended that you not use treated wood for garden vegetables as the chemicals will leach into the soil. To retain the moisture you could line with a 6mil plastic. Put a few holes in the bottom so that excess water can seep out. The liner will work so that you do not have to water so often.

Many people are concerned about what leaches into the soil from pressure treated lumber. My suggestion, since a liner would be plastic (which is no better than the lumber as far as chemicals are concerned) is to use cedar boards or yellow pine. Both can be found at hardware stores for fence building. Good luck.

If you are planting non-edibles you don't need to be concerned. For a veggie garden, just make sure the wood isn't treated with chemicals, there is a difference. We found that out when we replaced the wood floors in our fishing boat. There were two types of marine wood, one was treated and had arsenic in it and the other didn't. You can't use the arsenic one on the floors because it will leach out and cause problems. The other wood was more expensive, but healthier. You can line the raised garden with plastic. Make sure you put drainage holes in the plastic so you don't have standing water in the beds when it rains a lot. Put down rocks/gravel down on top of the liner to help with drainage. You can then fill with soil of your choosing, but not top soil (not amended at all, just dirt). If you are just elevating a little, you could forgo the plastic on the ground, but still put in rocks/gravel in for drainage.

Thank you very much for all your replies, its helped me.