Market Farming

[Allan Balliett <igg AT igg.com>]

> You might consider the decking made from recycled shopping bags and milk
> cartons and reclaimed hardwood sawdust - the original one was called Trex
> Lumber but now there are others available in the home improvement stores.
> It does not break down like lumber.  http://www.trex.com/

Personal experience: it warps.

How come nonoe of us know anything about the pressure treated wood 
the EPA allowed to replace the arsenic treated wood that none of us 
want to use? I asked LOWE's when I first heard that new stuff was 
happening. My first shock was that there was a couple of years 
allowed for transition. My 2nd was that Lowes no intention of 
carrying the new stuff until that date arrived. My 3rd is current: no 
one at any Lowes around here can answer questions about the 'new' 
stuff, even as simple as 'is this the EPA-approved stuff'? It's like 
the earlier stuff never existed and now there's this treated wood, 
that no one will vouch for. I lack the vocabularly to know what to 
ask for.

I do know this: organic certification is much more lax on pressure 
treated than I had imagined. For example, I believe that pressure 
treated posts (I assume the arsenic-type) are allowed outside of 30ft 
from a food producing bed, like in a fence line. I won't use the 
arsenic ones, ever, of course, but...did I mention that almost all 
the locust in this area has become useless due to a heartwood fungus? 
With the fungus, the wood is not longer rot proof.

-Allan Balliett
Shepherdstown, WV