Hi all, so in my weekly scrounge for free stuff I got this 2'x1'x1' shipping box that I want to plant mint in. It's untreated plain pine.

Any ideas for weatherproofing aside from acrylic paint? I've not much experience with wood items outside that I'll be growing food in.

Tia,
Barrie

Edit: Looks like linseed oil is coming up as the goto.

Edit again: Have a plan; I'll blog it.

If I'm remembering right, @DoghouseRiley has showed us some similar projects. Is this a project you could comment on, Riley?

Thank you Tiffany!

You're welcome. I'm surprised you don't have any responses on this yet.

purpleinopp said: You're welcome. I'm surprised you don't have any responses on this yet.

I've a plan with nontoxic waxes on the inside and acrylic paint on the outside. Probably not as durable as what I've been reading but definitely not gene mutating either!

I know this is an old post, but I'll reply in case someone is interested.
Seems like one my Dad made & stained, he used common tung (linseed) oil to finish it, 5 coats, to help weatherize wood containers, but I've never tried it myself. He believed tung oil was the miracle wood treatment.

I did refinish a dining room table years ago with 8 coats of tung oil on the top surface only, to protect from water marks. Water always beaded up on that table for easy wipe off and never got a water circle on it in the 10 years we were there, but I sold the table when we moved up to Central TX.

I honestly don't know how it would work in a full-outdoors setting. Your acrylic paint, double coated, might be just as easy and do as well as tung oil. Dad's container was on his back patio edge, so it only got minimal rain, just when the wind was coming in on that side. But it always looked pretty nice as I recall.