I got your email, Louise - Sorry, I've been away at a bonsai show & visiting friends/family. This is a tough one. As I understand it, you have a concrete block planter constructed atop a concrete slab, with no way for the water to make its way into the sand below the slab. Drilling holes in the block walls won't improve drainage. The only 2 ways to effectively improve drainage would be to make sure there is a 'bridge' between the soil in the planter and the sand below the concrete so the water can percolate through the soil, or to make sure the soil you use is porous enough that it holds little or no perched water. This would mean that your soil particles would have to be large & stable, insofar as their structure is concerned. Even the soil you see me holding above would be inappropriate for your application because that soil depends on the wicking action of the earth (in RBs) to ensure it doesn't remain saturated after rain/watering. It looks great, but if you have high standards it would be a disaster in a container or in your app. I'm thinking that about an 80% fraction of a mix of all purpose sand and all purpose gravel and 10% each of pine bark fines and Michigan (reed/sedge) peat or good compost would probably be the direction I would head. In subsequent years, I think all you'll need to do is mulch with pine bark to keep the soil healthy. If expense isn't a major consideration, you could use Turface MVP as the base ingredient for your soil. Topsoil and fine sand just isn't going to drain w/o help. The alternative would be to remove the old soil and cut a hole in the slab so water can drain from the soil in the planter, but it would have to be a hole of considerable size - preferably at the lowest point on the planter's bottom. If you have pictures, it's possible that something else might be devised that will allow the water to move out of the soil via some sort of passive wicking mechanism that we/you could devise, but I'd have to see the application in order to envision the possibilities. There might be a way to employ a false bottom by placing FRP panel on top of cement blocks that are resting on the bottom & building it like a self-watering container in reverse - where you employ a wicking column of soil to REMOVE water instead of supplying it, but I don't know how far you want to chase the issue? ;-) AL

I had to scroll up to see where i was. Is trex considered organic? Are they still playing that card? What percentage of the factory misc ingredients is actually recycled. What is the long term breakdown? I'm asking because i don't really know. I've not really followed but it seems most are not happy with it and now replacing it? It looks fake. Right behind the plastic tool shed, next to the plastic turtle sand box. And little tykes plastic jungle gym, behind the vinyl siding on the house with a plastic bubbly mailbox. Above ground plastic pool behind a chain-link with plastic strips in green and white with plastic adirondack chairs blown by the wind in a heap stuck in a corner...a storm last year. (an unfortunate driving direction landmark for visitors... just pass the elementary school, pass the 'plastic house', "its for sale!", on the left....) Plastics are difficult to avoid. Recycling is certainly the way to look at things available for free. Not sure if i would support purchasing such a thing. It would give me a bit of a shudder having a plastic or composite man-made material in my garden. If heading for a land-fill i might consider a compost bin. Maybe a flower bed edging somewhere. Base for a potting bench? I do have a compost bin made out of cinder blocks that were piled in the field when i bought the farm. Its the bin i don't really use. Just a place to stack all the big stuff i have no place for. Next to a big rusty vintage manure spreader that gets the really big stuff.

It's a bit of "technically true" mixed with a bit "take a look at it realistically." The amount of leeching in soil would be quite minor and not very horizontally mobile in the beds. Your biggest issue with treated wood would be from direct human contact (mostly direct contact followed by ingestion...such as handling the wood then eating something with your hands without washing your hands). Even with direct contact it's a constant ingestion thing that would be a concern more than an occasional incident because of the low amount of residues involved. If your wood is old and flaking away with the wind/weather, wash your produce before consuming because of possible external contamination. This shouldn't be much of an issue because most people do this anyway even when there's little/no threat of contamination. As far as the roots reaching the wood and uptaking "bad stuff" via contact... it's not much of a concern for almost every vegetable crop, especially fruiting and above ground leafy crops because of how well the roots and plants, themselves, exclude a lot of "bad stuff" by natural design.

I would say McFarlands as well. Yes it is composted matter from who knows where, anything people bring to drop. But I have seen the HUGE piles this stuff composts in and I think that alot of the bad is lost in the composting process, but no guarantees. I too would prefer 100% chemical free, but when I built several large beds the cost was not possible. What I ended up doing was filling the bds about half way and then adding organic soil and compost. The stuff at McFarlands comes in several mixes, which is nice, since you can mix it to amend your current soil. I usually get the 3 way mix (Compost, Soil and Sand), but they also have heavier mixes that would work as a mulch. I try to only use it for beds that I am not planning on using to grow produce, due to the possible chemicals, but at like $15 for half a yard (about 2/3 a pickup bed full) the price can't be beat when you have a lot of ground to cover. Added bonus, I usually take a load of debris with me, drop the debris, pick up the new dirt, one stop shopping. Just don't breath deep, that place can really put on a stink if the wind and weather is right. Yikes.