Gardening in tyres

Always keen to save money, I grabbed some freebie tyres from the tyre shop (on strict promise that they were never to be put on a car!) and have experimented with growing different veges in them.

I think they may have been a bit too hot for the lettuce and silver beat, although red lettuces seemed to do OK, but green ones were better in the garden.

Two huge successes, however, were zucchini and cherry tomatoes. Both of these were planted in tyres to try and provide some protection from the free-ranging chooks (which worked well). Initially I covered the zucchini with a 'witches hat' of wire mesh, because the chooks would jump up and scratch around it and nearly ruined the baby plant. Once it had spread to cover the soil I was able to take the cover off and the chooks never bothered it again.

I wrapped a tube of wire around the cherry tomato and that is providing good support (although the rogue self-seeded pumpkin is putting a fair bit of pressure on the wire, so it may need a bit more support soon.

The interesting thing about the plants in the tyres is that they were the 'runts of the litter' from my seedlings. Both of them were languishing in their pots after the bigger plants had been popped out in the main garden, and eventually I decided to do something with them because I couldn't bear to waste them. See for yourself the difference in size.

The 'big' tomato and zucchini planted in raised gardens and mulched with pea straw.

And below are the tomato and zucchini grown in tyres (plus some rogue potatoes and pumpkins).

Of course this is not a scientific experiment because they are not in exactly the same place in the garden and the soil won't be exactly the same, however I would have expected the raised garden plants to be doing at least as well as the others (given their warm positions, shelter etc. and healthier starting size), but the tyre plants are far outstripping the raised garden plants. The zucchini is in two stacked tyres, whereas the tomato is in just one tyre, with a good potting mix because I sat it on hard, dubious soil.

So, I'll be experimenting again next summer, and maybe through the winter as well.

Thought I would throw this picture of dwarf beans or bush beans planted in an old recycling crate because they are doing very well. The plants are covered in flowers so I'm looking forward to some purple teepee and cannelino beans soon.

One final unexpected bonus from the two-tier tyre garden for zucchini was that it provided protection from hedgehogs! At least a couple of my raised garden zucchinis were nibbled by hedgehogs, which was quite surprising.