I am sharing my experience with starting an Organic Container Garden. The first two posts are here and here. So I was looking for larger containers to transplant my seedlings to, when they were ready. Unfortunately, everything I was finding was plastic or Made in China. I did find a couple of wooden options, made in America, but they were so expensive.
I took some photos and sent them to my husband. Maybe he could handle a really big project? He said he could. We talked it through and decided on three long wooden planters with wheels that can be easily wheeled in and out by me. This was how they looked before the wheels. 
I wanted to find an organic option to protect the wood on the inside where the dirt and water would be, to prevent wood rot. I did some research and came up with a mixture of bees wax and coconut oil. I put two coats on the wood, just where the dirt would contact the wood and left it to dry. Unbeknownst to me, my husband went ahead and stained the rest of the wood, for cosmetic purposes. I was kind of surprised, but figured it was ok, the dirt wouldn’t be touching the areas that were stained. Unfortunately it started to rain right after my husband stained the containers and he had to leave them in the garage.
Before I knew it the house started smelling like kerosene. My clothes coming from the dryer smelled like kerosene. The oven smelled like kerosene. It was a stinky mess. Turns out the VOCs that off gas from oil based stains can get into the a/c ducts in your home and can get into the heating elements of the appliances. By the time we realized what had happened my asthma was really bad. A week later, it turned into a really bad case of asthmatic bronchitis and I was sick for the past three weeks. It was really rough. I am finally feeling better.
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