I’m planning on building some small planters for the garden. I plan to line them with some sort of liner but I’m keen to avoid leaching of chemicals into the food that I’ll be growing.

What are my options?
I’ve seen croma wood preserver. Is there anything else I can use?

I use the ranch type paint that's sold for doing fences etc - its quite cheap and does an OK job - other possibilities include bitumen (takes a while to dry), scorching the wood with a blow lamp, some sort of lining material like pond liner.

I used opened out compost bags to line mine, probably would do that again though, soil inevitably finds it's way behind the lining, and after 4 or 5 years the bags themselves go brittle and crumble into the soil.

I ended up using pond liner and some wood preservative and fingers crossed:

very professional - now to whip up a few more for selling at the local car boot :-)

Nice work. I would have used pond liner too.

Originally Posted by nickdub

very professional - now to whip up a few more for selling at the local car boot :-)

I made my dad a trough like this for Fathers' Day a couple of years ago:



Unlike this one (made with scavenged wood) I bought tanalised timber to do it properly. It cost me just over £50 and a few days because I'm not a fast worker, and I began to understand the prices in the garden centres....

Damp proof membrane if you can get it at a good price