How close to RR Ties can I plant my veggies and be safe? Is there some kind of plant / vine I can plant between RR Ties and veggies that will "soak up" the toxins? I'm new to this...

Keep edible plants at least six inches away. Plant anything not edible next to the ties. I would think the roots of any plant will take up the chems and you won't be tempted to eat them. Also I have heard using Zeolite binds up chems so maybe that would be good next to the ties. Also a physical barrier would be good too like plastic.

Better strategies for vegetable gardens....

Use cedar or untreated wood. Better yet, don't worry about a planting box. Just mound up compost with good stuff like lava sand, greed sand, rock powder, cornmeal and molasses. Don't till anything. Usually tilling just makes you more weeds and destroys the good worms and microbes in the soil. I could go on...

I am a lazy gardener who tries not to fuss too much.

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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

I actually like the raised gardens for reasons beyond the obvious. First of all, my garden is within a lawn full of Bermuda. Without some kind of physical barrier, the grass would take over the garden in about two months. I saw this first hand when I moved one of my raised 8' x 4' plots to another location. The bare spot where once my garden sat was unidentifiable inside of a month and a half.

Also, as I've mentioned before, my soil is not great. I imagine I could spend time conditioning it, but with raised beds I was able to give myself 8 inches of great soil, exactly the way I want it.

For what it's worth, I initially used treated wood (big mistake, I know) and replaced it last month with 4" x 8" x 16" cinders ($0.95 each at Home Depot). I wanted something cheap, permanent and of course non-toxic, and this worked pretty well.

if it was me, I would remove them and put something else in to hold up the raised beds..... you plan to eat these veggies I am sure so why take the chance... how long do those railroad ties last in the ground being run over by trains all the time... ???? that has to be some seriously toxic stuff to make them able to resist that kind of wear and tear... remove them or don't eat what grows anywhere near it in my opinion....

My husband and I removed railroad ties around our veggie garden when we moved into our house and we replaced them with metal landscape edging. It keeps most of the dirt in the garden and is not a home for termites which the house initially had problems with (the garden is pretty close to the house).

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BK