Planting My First Garden

[shilala]

Originally Posted by wayner123

I personally would refrain from using railroad ties. Because of the chemicals and oils they have. Sure people can make cases one way or the other on chemicals and their leeching. However, I cannot justify it in my own mind.


Here is a great article on root depth: http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglib...010137toc.html

Many plants have taproots and that will cause them to go deeper than 6". I am not sure how 6" became the standard, but it seems to work most of the time.

Wayner, usually the ties that guys get are spent ones. They've been used on the railroad and really don't have any crap left that's a problem. I sure wouldn't use new ones. I suppose I should have qualified, I just immediately thought of the old ones guys can buy at home. Odd I didn't think of new ones because there's a tie plant right by my house that stinks like the bejeezus. I used to be afraid of pressure-treated lumber. I've long since ceased being afraid of it. I'm not sure if people still fuss about it being bad for you or not?

I should also qualify the 6" stuff. I'm talking about garden plants up north here. Actually, most of our stuff can't get past 4", and 6" is a stretch. In long growing seasons and loose soil with certain cultivars, I don't suppose there's any reason why roots can't get down there further, especially if they're chasing water. I suppose it'd be dictated by the plant's length of season, they might never get time to get down there before they're done. The 6" thing is because that's all the deeper plants find the need to push roots to get what they need (around here). They'll actually never go past two inches if they never find need to. That's evidenced by our tomato plants. They just send roots all over the top of the ground until they find wormholes to send roots down. Even at that, they'll only go about 3" max. You can pull a whole plant out effortlessly in loose soil. We plant them sideways in a trough rather than in a hole. It works LOTS better like that.