I personally would not worry much about it. There are plenty of fiberglass planters out there on the market, so I don’t see how the screening would be a very big deal.

You can just cover it with landscape fabric, but the grass might figure out how to poke through. Particularly if it’s some kind of aggressive grass like Bermuda. You’d get the best results by taking a little bit of extra time and digging up the grass first.

I have a question about the lining in my raised bed on legs.
The bottom of the bed is made of hard wood planks 6″ wide by 3″ thick , with 0.5″ space between, to allow for drainage. my question is : should I cover the wood at the botom with : A) a plastic sheet ? B) paper barier like we use under the shingles on a roof ? C) or the landscaping fabric ? Of course for the A and B , I would make many holes to allow water to drain.
Thank you very much for your advise.

So, I know this is not the best scenario but I’m building a raised vegetable garden out of scraps my boyfriend had used for a fence. The problem is it’s weather-treated wood. He bought it recently so it shouldn’t be the CCA kind. Can I still garden happily? I know people recommend a plastic barrier but I haven’t found any specifics. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

———-
Well, it’s great you are recycling! If the lumber was bought recently, could you check with the store where it was bought and confirm exactly how the lumber was treated? Yes, a plastic barrier can be used between the soil and lumber. Here’s more information on construction materials for raised gardening beds.

No, not really.

Are you building a raised bed that’s on legs and lifted off the ground? Or are you putting it directly on the ground?

If you were trying to build a box on legs, then you could maybe put plywood at the bottom to hold the soil. But you’d want to drill a lot of holes in it, so that it could drain.

If it’s directly on the ground, you don’t want to put plywood on the bottom, because your raised bed won’t drain.

If you want to block any weeds from growing up from the bottom, just use several layers of wet cardboard, or thick layers of wet newspaper, or landscaping fabric. All of those will allow water to drain out, but will block weeds from growing up.