Which wooden Garden bed? Cypress, Red gum, or ACQ. we'll discuss the benefits and shortcomings of each for vegetable wood garden bed applications.
Cypress offers many benefits and is possibly the best suited for wooden garden beds. Cypress has a superb durability rating (the highest you can get) and it does all that without any nasty chemicals. It’s naturally full of oils that repel termites and resist rot. It’s a beautiful pine colour and when weathered turns a lovely shale grey colour. Being a softer wood it’s very easy to work with and light weight compared with red gum.
Red gum makes a tough as nails wooden garden bed. Red gum is also a "class 1" timber equal to that of treated pine, but without them chemicals. What I find most people love about red gum is the naturally deep red colour which can be maintained with either decking oil, or as i prefer with natural raw linseed oil. When left alone it also turns a lovely shale grey colour.
ACQ is known as a "safer" type of treated pine. Its light weight easy to work with and fairly cheap. ACQ is not to be confused with CCA treated pine which is poisonous. CCA pine's poisons leach into the crops grown and build-up in the consumer causing a variety of problems including hair loss.
My opinion is that for a wooden garden bed Cypress is the best (not to be confused with Cedar that’s not as durable). Red gum comes in second and old ACQ pine last. And CCA treated pine NEVER.
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Wicking beds
We now stock wicking bed boxes, these are a great alternative to high drainage sand. Garden beds require less fill and can hold more water, lasting longer between the hot weeks in the peak of summer.
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