new garden

i recently moved to virginia. the soil on my property is mostly clay.im going to have to do raised beds for vegetable gardening.is it safe to use pressure treated wood for the frames. if not,would it be alright to wrap the pressure treated wood with a heavy gague plastic.im worried about chemicals leaching into the ground.

 

My wife had the same concern with our raised beds. I would not use thin plastic that you buy on rolls. It works but is easily cut or torn with one slip of the shovel. I have had good luck using galvanized steel flashing held in place with galvanized roofing nails.

Another step up from that, when I did my fancy raised bed garden, I purchased 1/4" thick sheets of plastic from a plastics fabricator. I made the frames for the beds out of pressure treated and the plastic was strong enough to not need support so it formed the sides of the bed. This is a good option if you will be staying in your house and getting real use from the raised beds since this type of construction is not cheap.



Depending on the quality of your soil make the beds much taller than you think they need to be. 12" is the minimum and 18" or deeper is needed for some crops if your native soil is very bad.