Yes, I meant either/or. As you can see Bill, pcp is still allowed for treatment of rr ties, although most are treated with creosote - most, not all. I don't know if Allen knows what they had been treated with. "Allen's ties have already been in the ground a long time,..." I'm not sure how to interpret this. Do you mean all of the creosote or pcp has leached into the surrounding soil? That is why I would remove the soil too. I've heard creosote can remain in wood for up to 80 years. Here in my state and I believe most if not all others, our county has a household hazardous waste collection site and to further encourage people to dispose of hazardous materials properly, sets up a neighborhood pick-up collection at least once per year. From there the materials are disposed of according to more stringent regulations than ordinary waste. Maybe BC doesn't have a similar program. My city includes plastic in the recycling progam, so I don't need to come up with creative ways of burying waste plastic in the garden. "I think we get a little too focused on one little 'evil' around us and lose the big picture-" Bill, what do you know about these contaminants? "Technical grade PCP has historically contained dioxins (e.g. tetra-, hexa- and octochlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) and hexachlorobenzene as manufacturing by-products." (http://ace.orst.edu/cgi-bin/mfs/01/pips/pentachl.htm) "concerned about plastic but drive a car ..." I think it is far wiser to not add hazardous products to an already contaminated environment when there is no need, than to find excuses to continue the practice. A good way to help limit our contribution to the problems is to not continue to add to the enviromental burden, especially when we know certain item/s are problematic. Removing these problematic items and disposing of them properly lessens the burden.

Just remember, RR ties get to be heavy after a while. If you are lifting them and they're light-weight, the core's already been eaten out by termites. RR ties are fine in some areas, I don't recommend them around your house just because of the termite vector, especially here in the south. If it's a large, mounded bed, veggies up in center where water's always washing down really isnt a problem. But I would not plant veggies immediately behind RR ties. At least a few rows back where you have maybe marigolds and garlic and onions in front as pest deterants would be the minimum distance I'd put tomatoes back from RR ties, just knowing cresote chemistry and leaching. But again, a raised bed with mounded soil will limit much of the back-leaching and instead have it flow down and away from your plants anyway. The more vertical clearance past the RR ties down to the ground the better, as it will encourage a 'safer' removal of the cresote. Otherwise, busted up concrete and hauling off rocks from construction sites works for me. I've only bought some cobblestone pavers to edge out central areas I'm around a lot, and use the rougher stuff elsewhere.

Larry, They both have cancer? Oh, my. That is a really tough break. I understand what they are going through, having been through it myself and having a family member battling cancer now too. I cannot imagine what your daughter and son-in-law would do without you right now, and am glad you live close enough to them to be able to help them. Mia, The north-south or east-west issue is as old as the hills. I believe the technically correct answer is that in most cases it is preferable to run beds north-south to take full advantage of both morning and afternoon sun as the sun passes from east to west. When you plant this way, as the sun passes overhead, the plants are not shaded by the plants on either side of them. Taller plants like corn, tomato plants, pole beans, tall forms of okra, etc. should be on the north end of the garden so they do not shade shorter plants. However.... We all live in the real world and have to take other factors into consideration. I consider the slope of the land to be the deciding factor in how to run rows if you are not on relatively level ground. So, for those of us gardening on a slope, I think it is better to run our rows sideways across the slope instead of up-and-down the slope. When you run your rows across the slope, you can reduce the impact of erosion. Someone like me whose garden slopes both from west to east and from south to north has to use creative bed placement to stop erosion as much as possible. I have most beds running east-west because that is what works with my slope, but some running north-south, also to reduce erosion. It isn't perfect, and I tinker with the layout from time to time, but I'm happy with it overall. For someone in a very exposed area where wind exposure causes lots of damage to the plants, those gardeners might choose to site the rows based on the direction from which their most damaging winds tend to come. For someone whose garden is in a yard with homes or other buildings, wooden stockade fences, trees, etc. nearby, a person needs to site their garden rows in whichever manner works best with the surrounding items that may case shade on the beds or funnel rain runoff onto them or whatever. In a new home, you partly have to guess at how this will work your first year. The sun and shadow patterns you observe at this time of year will not be the same patterns you'll see in summer. Now, having said all that, I sat here and thought about the gardens belonging to people on roads nearby and most of their rows run east-west. We all have different issues with terrain, but even the gardens I can think of that are on flat land or relatively flat land near us run their beds from east to west. I can think of only two that run north-south. You'd have to pick the brain of each individual to see why they choose to run the beds east-west or north south. In the one area where I have beds on relatively flat land, the rows do run north-south. Dawn

All I am sort of new here and will share my yellow one! I don't know the name because a friend gave it to me. It was from a trip to Hawaii and all the package said was "White Plumeria". It is beautiful. I planted it in 2010, something ate the top of it off before coming out in Spring of 2011 so it didn't start showing leaves until last summer. It started blooming in October or November and bloomed till January of this year. I am hoping to get earlier blooms this year. If someone could help me with the name, I would appreciate it. Here is a link that might be useful: