What Wood to Use for Raised Garden Beds in the High Desert

Stand in our building-supplies aisle on a Saturday in June and you'll see the same standoff play out a dozen times. A gardener has a cart, a rough plan, and three options in front of them: a stack of cheap Douglas fir, a pricier bundle of cedar, and "that green treated stuff" they're half-convinced will poison their tomatoes. They want one straight answer to one question. Which wood should I actually buy?

Here in Carson City the answer matters more than it does in a milder, wetter climate. Our high-desert summers throw relentless UV at everything, the air is bone dry, and winter swings the temperature across freezing and back again on a regular basis. Those conditions are hard on wood. The board that lasts fifteen years on the Oregon coast can check, gray, and warp a lot faster at 4,700 feet of dry Nevada sun. So before you build, it's worth a few minutes to pick wood that earns its place in your yard.

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The best woods for a raised garden bed, ranked

For an edible raised bed, you're choosing between natural rot resistance and price. The common options compare like this.

Cedar is the one we point most gardeners toward. Western red cedar is naturally rot- and insect-resistant without any chemical treatment, and a well-built cedar bed commonly lasts 10 to 15 years, according to University of Minnesota Extension. It costs more than fir up front, but spread across a decade-plus of service it's usually the best value, and it's a safe choice for growing food.

Redwood performs similarly to cedar and looks beautiful doing it. It's the premium option and priced like one. If you want it, we can point you to it, but most backyard growers get everything they need from cedar for less money.

Cypress is another naturally durable, rot-resistant species. It's less common on the shelf out here, so availability is the main catch.

Douglas fir and pine are the budget play. They'll build you a perfectly good bed for this season and the next few, but untreated softwood in our climate tends to start breaking down in roughly three to seven years depending on how much sun and moisture it sees. If your goal is to get growing cheaply and you don't mind rebuilding down the road, fir is an honest choice. Just go in knowing it's a shorter-term bed.

Is pressure-treated wood safe for growing vegetables?

This is the question we hear more than any other, and it deserves a clear answer instead of a shrug.

The fear comes from real history. For decades, pressure-treated lumber was made with chromated copper arsenate, or CCA, which contains arsenic. The EPA restricted CCA-treated wood for residential use, and it hasn't been sold to consumers at home centers since around 2003 (EPA, Chromated Arsenicals). If you're picturing arsenic leaching into your carrots, you're picturing a product you can't even buy anymore.

The treated lumber on shelves today uses copper-based preservatives like alkaline copper quaternary (ACQ) or copper azole. They contain no arsenic. Oregon State University Extension studied raised beds built from this modern treated lumber and found that while soil copper rose slightly right at the edge of the boards, the vegetables and herbs grown in those beds showed no increase in copper in the plants themselves (OSU Extension). In plain terms: modern treated wood is considered a reasonable, economical choice for raised beds.

Our honest take: if treated lumber fits your budget and you want a long-lasting bed, it's a legitimate option backed by extension research. If you'd simply rather not have any treated wood near your food, that's a completely fair preference, and you have two easy moves: build with cedar, or build with treated wood and staple a food-safe poly liner along the inside walls so the soil never touches the boards. Either way, you get a bed you can feel good about.

Woods and shortcuts to skip

A few materials look tempting and aren't worth it:

Old railroad ties are soaked in creosote, which is not something you want around edible soil. Reclaimed lumber with peeling paint is a gamble, especially anything that might predate modern lead-free paint. And thin furring strips or fence pickets will save you a few dollars and then bow outward under the weight of wet soil within a season. For the walls of a bed holding hundreds of pounds of damp dirt, use real dimensional lumber.

How tall and deep should the bed be?

Most vegetables are happy in a bed that gives them 10 to 12 inches of soil depth, which suits leafy greens, beans, peppers, and the like. If you're growing root crops such as carrots or potatoes, or deep feeders like tomatoes, aim for 18 inches or more so roots have room to run.

Height is also about your back. A taller bed means less bending, which is the whole point for a lot of gardeners. If kneeling is hard on you, consider building a raised bed on legs, essentially a waist-high planter box. It uses less soil, drains well, and you can tend it standing up. The trade-off is that elevated beds dry out faster, so they need more frequent watering in our climate.

What goes on the bottom, and keeping gophers out

You generally don't want a solid bottom on a ground-level bed, because good drainage and a path for roots and worms matter more than tidiness. What you put down depends on what you're fighting.

If gophers or voles are a problem in your neighborhood, and in plenty of Carson City yards they are, line the bottom with half-inch galvanized hardware cloth before you add soil. Staple it to the inside of the frame so nothing tunnels up into your root crops. Over the hardware cloth, a layer of cardboard or landscape fabric will smother the grass and weeds underneath while it breaks down. Skip plastic sheeting on the bottom; it traps water and drowns roots.

Your raised-bed materials checklist

Here's the part most online guides skip: the wood is only half the cart. Building a bed that lasts means getting the fasteners and the fill right too. This is the full list we'd hand you at the counter:

• Boards sized to your plan (cedar for most folks, fir to save money).

• Exterior-rated deck screws, galvanized or coated, not interior drywall screws, which rust and fail outdoors. You'll find these in our hardware and fasteners department.

• Corner brackets if you want extra rigidity, which helps in longer beds that tend to bow.

• Half-inch hardware cloth for the bottom if gophers are a concern.

• Landscape fabric for weed suppression.

• Soil and compost to fill it. A quick way to estimate: length × width × depth in feet gives you cubic feet, and there are about 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard. A 4-by-8 bed filled 12 inches deep needs roughly 32 cubic feet, a little over a cubic yard, so plan on a blend of garden soil and compost to get there. Our lawn and garden department carries what you need.

You'll find the lumber in building supplies. And because nobody enjoys hauling a dozen bags of garden mix in the back seat, remember that Wickstrom delivers, so the heavy stuff can show up at your door instead of your trunk.

Once the bed is built and planted, keeping the surrounding yard tidy makes the whole project look finished. If you're sorting out the rest of your outdoor setup, our take on the STIHL FS 91R trimmer covers the tool we recommend for edging around beds and fence lines.

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Frequently asked questions

Is pressure-treated wood safe for raised garden beds? Modern treated lumber uses copper-based preservatives (ACQ or copper azole) with no arsenic, and extension research found no increase in copper in vegetables grown in beds built from it. The arsenic-based CCA wood that caused the old worries hasn't been sold to consumers since around 2003. If you'd still rather avoid it, use cedar or line the inside of a treated bed.

What's the best, cheapest wood for a raised bed? Cedar is the best all-around value because it lasts 10 to 15 years untreated. Douglas fir or pine is the cheapest up front but breaks down in roughly three to seven years here.

How tall should a raised garden bed be? Ten to 12 inches of depth works for most vegetables; go 18 inches or more for root crops and deep feeders, or build a waist-high bed on legs if bending is hard on you.

What should I put on the bottom of a raised bed? Hardware cloth if you have gophers, then cardboard or landscape fabric to block weeds. Avoid solid plastic, which ruins drainage.

How long will a cedar bed last? Commonly 10 to 15 years thanks to cedar's natural rot resistance, and longer if you add an interior liner.

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A raised bed is one of the most satisfying weekend projects there is, and it's a lot easier when you start with the right materials. Come see the lumber in our building-supplies department and the soil, seed, and tools in lawn and garden. Tell us what you're growing and how big you're thinking, and we'll help you pick the boards and the right fasteners to go with them. Stop by Wickstrom Ace Hardware in Carson City, and let us help you get growing.

About Wickstrom Ace Hardware: We're your neighborhood hardware store in Carson City, Nevada, stocking lumber, fasteners, lawn and garden supplies, tools, and the local know-how to match. Our team helps high-desert homeowners tackle projects the right way the first time, with delivery available for the heavy loads.