Beeswax: A Non-Toxic Wood Treatment for Your Raised Garden Bed

Backyard gardens are back! We’re thrilled homeowners have taken the lemons 2020 has thrown at them and turned to some terrific hobbies to pass their time at home. Backyard gardening is a great way to grow your own food and feed not just you and your family, but our precious local bees, too.

And did you know you can enlist the help of our bee friends to ensure your garden is eco-friendly? They’re happy to pitch in by providing beeswax as a non-toxic wood treatment to waterproof your raised garden bed.

Raised garden beds are essential to most Texas backyard gardens since our soil is so rocky. A great way to extend the life of your raised beds—which are usually made from landscape wood—is by using a non-toxic wood treatment to waterproof them. Using a polyurethane stain or lining the bed with plastic are standard practices, but do you really want those chemicals touching the soil you’re using to grow your food?

Beeswax is a safe alternative. It’s been used as a non-toxic wood treatment and waterproofing sealant throughout history. And since it’s all-natural and even antifungal and antibacterial, it’s a great choice to waterproof your raised garden bed.

To use beeswax as a waterproof sealant, start with a block of beeswax. We sell them right here and through Amazon. Melt the beeswax with a carrier oil, let it cool, and rub the liquid beeswax on the wood with a cloth. We found a great recipe here, which includes charcoal as an added ingredient.

Once you’ve waterproofed your raised garden bed, don’t stop there. Beeswax can be used to waterproof shoes, belts, cutting boards, and even cloth to make food wraps. And don’t forget to share your creations with us on Facebook and Instagram.