Does anyone have any good ideas of things you can build using old tyres? I've built swings with them, a castle for my kids (large truck tyres) and now I use them to provide watering holes for newly planted trees. Tyres are a huge environmental problem - I'd love to hear other people's ideas about weird and wonderful uses they've put them to.

Damian

-- Damian Martin (damianmartin@post.com), February 16, 2001

Answers

We use them around the tomatoe cages. they provide heat from the sun. BE

-- Ardie from WI (a6203@hotmail.com), February 16, 2001.

We use them around the tomatoe cages. They provide heat from the sun. BE CAREFUL, snakes love to hide inside them.

-- Ardie from WI (a6203@hotmail.com), February 16, 2001.

Damian, I have used them to plant strawberries in, ( it keeps the turtles for eating the strawberries, they love them). I have used them to plant potatoes in. When the plants grows tall, I just add another tire and some more dirt. When you are ready to harvest, you just pull each tire off and shake out all the potatoes. Sincerely, Ernest www.communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks

-- Ernest in the Ozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), February 16, 2001.

Damian;

You can also use them to grow potatoes, Use a saber saw to cut the sidewalls off and stack them up as needed. Then when it's time to harvest the potatoes you just remove them and save them for next year. They'll last a long long time.

God Bless Jim Tanner

-- Jim Tanner (tanner_jim@hotmail.com), February 16, 2001.

Damian, we have some old large tractor tires and one day my kids got the idea to place them in the field with the goats, and that has been so much fun for the goats and the kids, the goats try to play king of the hill and knock each other off or if my kids are on there the goats will try to knock off the kids. We have also used them for potatoes, strawberries, works great for carrots and sweet potatoes. God Bless.

-- tracy emily in TN (emilyfarms@tsixroads.com), February 17, 2001.

i use old tires around squash. You dig them a bit into the ground, and fill the middle with dirt. This way when you water the plant the water stays at the root. On the more enthusiastic plants this is a good way to find the bace.

-- jessie (jazz_ca@yahoo.com), February 17, 2001.

Up here in the ozarks there is no such thing as level ground to build a fence on. I've noticed a lot of folks up here put tires on their fence posts that are down in the gully...ie the one's most likely to be pulled up. Seems to work well and ought to help prolong the life of the post as it keeps water off the tops. I've also seen people make a sort of gate out of them to go across a creek so it will be flexible during the different depths of the creek.

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), February 18, 2001.

I use big ones to feed my horses out of. You can have them turned inside out and they make great feeders that even the most playful colts can't break or get hurt on! I also have 3 HUGE tires from earth mover type equipment and I plant to make stock water tanks out of them. I will cut the sidewall out and then pour cement into the bottom as a plug. You can even add a float valve and make automatic filling tanks this way.

-- elle (eagle-quest@juno.com), February 18, 2001.

large ones can be used to build a sandbox for children. I stack regular tires to make compost in..put down a tire, fill with material..add another tire and keep adding. I usually stop at 3 but if you are tall you might do 4 or 5. I also drill holes in the walls for drainage of rain water so it doesn't sit in the walls. To turn the pile, just disassemble the stack , restack the tires next to the original pile and turn the material back into the stack. I usually do this everyday or even twice a day and get compost fairly quickly. It works better than any other method I have used and I usually have a couple of stacks going and one in use. I also use tires as raised beds for heat lovers like peppers.

-- Alison in Nova Scotia (aproteau@istar.ca), February 19, 2001.

This is one of my favorite subjects, recycling old tires.

My neighbor made a retaining wall out of tires by ramming them full of dirt and stacking them so they overlap on each layer and step back into the contour of the hill as they go up. He then over-planted the wall with climbig plants and now you can't even see the tires.

On another forum I read about taking a larger tire - 8 feet in diameter, must have been a truck tire or larger equipment - and cutting out the side wall in order to use it for a raised garden bed.

We use tires to weight down everthing we don't want blown away - cut in pieces to use for bumpers to keep me from hitting the edge of the barn with the bucket on the tractor - piled into the low spots along the fence to keep my escape artists from crawling under the fence.

The best part is that most tire sellers will deliver loads of them to your door just for the asking.

-- Maggie's Farm (elemon@peacehealth.org), February 21, 2001.