Wood from Hot Tub for Raised Bed?
The wife and I are looking for ways to create raised beds, with minimizing the cost. We have a Cedar hot tub that we no longer use and could create two raised beds after cutting it in half, vertically.
My biggest concern are the chemicals that have seeped into the fibers of the wood, and the possibility of those chemicals leeching out into the garden soil we plant in.
The exterior of the tub was treated with a finish, which should not be used in contact with the soil.
I do have a planer and could trim off a little of the thickness of each board, to remove the wood with chemicals and/or the exterior finish. On this note, this means that I could plane off the exterior finish and then put that surface on the inside of the raised bed.
What do you all think on this topic? Good idea? Bad idea?
We’re not interested in selling the tub and using that money for a raised bed, something we’ve already considered.