Raised Garden Build with rubberizeit to prevent rot?

[RichardLV]

Hello all!

New here and looking at a fall/winter project with my father. He is getting older, still enjoys gardening but it is getting harder & harder for him to get up and down.

Solution? - Raised garden!

We are going to be building a 26' x 3.5' raised garden that will have approximately 12" of soil in it - it will sit about 30" (from the top) high.

We are looking at doing this as cost effective as possible - so we are looking at building with combination of 4x4s, 2x12s, 2x4s (for support) and plywood.

My question is - when completed, i am looking to seal the whole thing with rubberizeit - they say it is safe for container gardening and is non-toxic and uv stable..

Does anyone have any experience with this product? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Richard

[Kisal]

Personally, I wouldn't use anything to "seal" the bed. As with any other kind of gardening container, you want the best drainage you can get. Plastic linings and other types of sealants will only interfere with the drainage. JMO.

Welcome to the forum!

[RichardLV]

Thanks for the reply - I do understand about the drainage - and we were planning on drilling a bunch of 1/4" holes in the bottom - then coating the bottom with the rubber - in the holes, top, bottom - everywhere - this way I wouldn't run the risk of the wood rotting - seeing how I am not going to use treated lumber... I was just curious if anyone here has used rubberizeit in the past and looking for their feedback.

thanks!

[cynthia_h]

I have raised beds with no bottoms. The roots of plants go much farther down than I would ever have expected, and no matter what Mel Bartholomew (Mister Square Foot Gardening) says, 6 inches of soil just won't cut it. Poor Bed #1....

In the subsequent raised beds, DH and I made sure there were at least 10 to 12 inches of soil/compost in the beds before the plant roots would hit native soil. All the plants did much better than those in Bed #1.

The only thing I put on the bottom of any of the beds was a series of layers of newspapers, to slow down the weeds. It has worked very well: this year is the first in which I've had anything come up to the surface even of Bed #1 from below and, of course, it was a blackberry runner. But Bed #1 was established in Spring 2008, and the runner showed up Spring 2011. Not bad for newspapers!

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[RichardLV]

Thanks again for your reply...

I am not being too clear in my description - i am actually going to raise the bed off the ground and the 12" deep bed that is approximately 26' long by 3.5' deep will sit on top of a frame made out of 4x4s - this way - my father does not have to get down on his knees to garden. The reason for the coating is to prevent rot - because I do not want to use treated wood - cost and toxins - the rubberizeit is non toxic - I thought it would be a good method to waterproof the wood - was just looking to see if anyone could provide me with any experience they have had.

Thanks for everything!

[kumpikov]

Richard, I see you could not get much help here, but I was wondering if you found out if RubberizeIt is a safe sealer for vegetable raised beds.

Thanks!
Nikolay

[ID jit]

Up front, I am pretty new & clueless about raised beds and container stuff, but am facing the same issue with my mom.

Was looking into building 16" deep boxes 3' wide and 6' long and having the soil level about 3' off the ground.

First thing which came to mind was spaying the pre cut lumber with fiberglass resin (thinned with denatured alcohol to spray). Assembling the whole thing and then respraying in again. Fiberglass resin is inert when cured and dry lumber will absorb it when it is thinned and wet.

Second thing I found was that people build fish tanks with three side and the bottom made out of braced marine grade plywood and apply a few coats of epoxy paint to plywood to seal them up. A few people I corrosponded with were actually using epoxy garage floor coating. Like fiberglass resin, epoxies are inert once cured.

Either method accomplishes the same thing, you get the wood to absorb what ends up being and inert "plastic" coating.

If you are going with raised beds like that, you may want to take a look at this thread:
http://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=60946
and build really build really big Sub Irrigated Containers to minimized the effort used in watering / weeding.

I abandoned my project when my mom stated she wanted "nothing to do with a garden that is not in the ground". So 2 years later, I am here trying to learn how to grow strawberries in containers for her. Seems she changed her mind a little bit or something.

Good luck with it.

[rainbowgardener]

Same thing applies. Sealing the wood to make it last longer is fine, but you do have to provide plenty of drainage.