My Little Tire Garden

When my husband and our 4 kids and I moved into our little brick house 7 years ago, we opened up a mechanic's shop in the little shop that shared our 5 acres. After a year we built a new shop because we ran out of room in the old one. Our business was growing in leaps and bound and so was the tire pile out back from the old tires we were taking off people's cars. We never intended to get into the tire business- and still don't- it's a courtesy we offer our customers. We don't stock tires, but we can order them in and since we live out in the boonies, it's very convenient for people to come here for new tires on their trucks and cars.

So, back to the stack of tires. What on earth were we going to do with them all? The local recycler charges quite a bit to take them off our hands so we wanted to figure out some way of utilizing at least some of them. And then it came to me....Raised garden beds!!

We put up a fence- to keep the bigger critters out of the garden- and set the tires inside, cut the sidewalls out of them, filled them with amended native soil, and planted.

It worked pretty well except for the darned grass! I've never seen grass like this stuff before. It gets into everything! It sends out runners and just invades everywhere. After a few years of mowing inside the garden perimeter 2-3 times a week, we finally decided that a major garden renovation was in order. 

                                      

We emptied all the soil from the tires and pulled the tires up. After scraping up as much of the grass as we could, we laid down some commercial grade landscape fabric. We replaced the tires and cut an X in the fabric under each tires so the plants would be able to have enough room for root growth. We refilled the tires with the soil and compost, then spread clean drain rock on top of the fabric. We've had 2 years worth of gardening in it since the remodel and we love it! No grass!! Weeding in the tires is easy and quick, keeping things tidy is so much easier and I love being out in my garden without getting chiggers from the grass. 

Generally I plant one plant per tire- tomatoes, peppers, squash. However, cucumbers, okra, green beans, and onions, we plant several per tire and they do great. The big tractor tires outside the garden fence- you can see them in a couple of the pictures- are for the watermelon and cantaloupe plants as well as the asparagus bed. 

P.S. if you're concerned about chemicals leaching from the tires into the soil- we've had our soil tested every year since we started using the tires- 6 years now- and have had no evidence of breakdown or leaching. It's a great way to recycle tires and it's not too difficult to get them free if you don't have any of your own to use. 

Do you use anything unusual to plant in? One of my favorite flower planters is a 1932 Kenmore washing machine with the wringers still attached!