This needs to be posted in the Organic Gardening Forum. You'll be more likely to obtain good advice regarding this particular subject.

As a matter of fact, railroad tie hazards have been discussed over and over in that forum. Use the forum search for railroad ties and you'll be able to read all of the posts that have been made just to the Organic Gardening forum.

This post was edited by rhizo_1 on Fri, Oct 4, 13 at 11:38

Thank you!

First of all, those old railroad lumbers are not going to leach much, if nothing at all anymore. Even they did, it is going to go down by gravity(with water) not side way.

Second, if they were leaching badly , you wouldn't want ANY PLANT to absorbe that stuff, especially leafy and root crops.

Soil water travels in every direction.