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Re: Creosote reply

Sorry folks, in my haste I sent the following reply incomplete and
unsigned.

Regards
Stephen

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Stephen Griffiths
Barfield Allotment Association
Whetstone, London. England.
stephen.griffiths@dial.pipex.com.
allotments@dial.pipex.com
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/close/xpz05/
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> Dear All,
> I have just creosoted some wooden planks
> to form a surround on my raised beds.
> Is this a bad idea ?
> Brian (Blackpool, UK)

Hi Brian

A bad idea from what point of view?

Your plants?
The environment?
Your health?

Most "organic" systems are against it because it is toxic to plants if they
touch it, but this is only if they touch the freshly creosoted wood.
I have used creosoted supports around some beds. It did not damage the
plants or cause them to curl up and die.
I have a creosoted shed on my allotment. I have a rose climbing up it. The
rose is unconcerned and gets on with growing.
I have creosoted compost bins, the compost rots, and it does not kill the
plants in the ground, or indeed the volunteer potatoes growing out of the
compost right now.
Whether the creosote gets into your vegetables via the soil and then into
you is debatable. I don't think there is any good evidence for that. People
have been using creosote for donkeys years in vegetable gardens

At the risk of inflaming the Organic PC brigade who are dead against it, in
my opinion it is a matter of personal choice. If you creosote the wood it
stays usable longer, but you possibly temporally contaminate your local
micro-environment with a tar based poisonous substance. Or you leave the
wood untreated and it rots after two or three years. You then use more wood
to surround your beds, thereby causing more trees to be cut down.

Interestingly, Lawence D. Hills who is a founder of the organic movement in
the UK is untroubled by its use and recommends it for compost bins. See "A
month by month guide to Organic Gardening" by Lawrence D. Hills.
He also recommends using it diluted as a weed killer, saying that "it
contains phenols which have a soil bacterium to break them down and as
creosote is a product of wood distillation, it will not leave anything
permanent in the soil" 

There are some "organic" (ish) wood preservatives around but don't know
much about them.

Anyway it is a bit academic isn't it? You say you have painted them
already, so why not just get on with it and see what happens.

But I really wouldn't worry about it.
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