Has anyone ever used old tires to plant potatoes or other plants?

We tried this year before last, growing potatoes in stacked tires. It actually worked pretty well for a while until the cat figured out how to climb up on the tires and used it for a litter box. I couldn't be outside to watch it all the time, so I gave up on it.

The tires are supposed to retain the sun's heat, which is good for the growing roots.

Have you tried this?

 

My husband used to plant yam in sacks - nylon or jute. He would place the sack beside the iron grill fence that will serve as the trellis. After filling half the sack with soil, he would place the planting material inside. After 6 months or so, all he had to do is to open up the sack - normally a nylon sack self-destructs - and the yam is ready for picking. We used to have 4 to 6 sacks at that time. The harvested yam would be cooked in coconut milk to be a cake for dessert. And it's a lot so we give away more than half to other people. He just stopped planting yam because he had no more time to cook.

That old vehicle tire can be a good planter box. However, it should be placed under a shade because this is a tropical country and the extreme heat of the sun may cook the plant in the tire. All our potted plants here are placed under the shade and only exposed to the sun in the early morning until 8am. Potted plants easily dehydrate when the weather is too hot.

 

That's a brilliant idea. Vulcanized rubber hardly ever degrades, so even in the worst sort of apocalypse, we'd have more of it than we'd know what to do with. By the same measure, does anyone know any decent uses for polystyrene foam? It makes a great cup, so I'm told, but I doubt we'd have any need for that in a survivalist setting.

 

This is awesome! I have never even considered this at all. I currently have 3 busted or blown tires that I will definitely be putting to use this weekend. So, for easier access to the potatoes, do you cut holes in the sides of the tires when it's time to start harvesting them? Is there anything specific that I should do to the tires besides given them a good rinse off?

 

I am learning a new way of planting! I will try this when planting season begins for our sweet potatoes. I can recycle the old tires for a long time since they don't easily break and hopefully save mother nature in the process.

 

No, I haven't used tires before. However, I have seen this idea talked about on other gardening websites.

 

For many home gardeners, the potato can be a satisfying crop to grow, as growing only 2 pounds of seed potatoes can produce up to 50 pounds of potatoes to eat. Potatoes are a fairly easy crop to grow, especially when starting with certified disease-free seed potatoes. Tires make an excellent raised bed for growing potatoes when space is limited. Each tire stack allows the tubers plenty of room to grow, makes harvesting easy and holds enough potato plants to produce several pounds of potatoes for the family.

Because potatoes develop underground tubers, they require plenty of room. When planting in a traditional garden setting, potato sets are space about 8 to 12 inches apart and 3 to 4 inches deep to allow the tuber to reach a good size for home use. When planting the potatoes in old tires, you need to leave enough room for the plants to develop properly. When using a regular old car tire, you can safely plant three to four potatoes per tire. Each plant yields about five to 10 potatoes. Ambicious Gardeners may also use tractor tires to grow and plant more potatoes per tire or give the potatoes more room to grow, as the larger diameter offers more space. You can also use a utility knife to cut away the sidewalls out of the tires, as this almost doubles the growing area.

Potatoes are ready to harvest when the foliage turns yellow, unless you harvest early potatoes; you can harvest early potatoes once the flowers have opened or buds have dropped. When harvesting mature potatoes, you simply remove the tires from the stack and allow the dirt and potatoes to fall away. Growing in tires eliminates digging and the risk of bruising or damaging the potatoes and potato skins during harvest. You can store potatoes in a cool, dark, well-ventilated area for up to six months.

 

That's wicked cool. I never even thought about it. I might try it out sometime this summer. Thanks for the awesome idea!

 

I actually have a minivan tire in my garage that is in decent shape and I am very interested in trying this out in the late summer as part of our fall planting. My concern with using a black tire in the heat of summer is that it may retain too much heat and kill growing roots and plants. Tire treads can easily heat to over 120 degrees on a 95-degree day in the sun so that would have to be handled in some manner.