Raised Garden Bed

*This post was previously posted in April 2014. It has been updated and reworked for your reading pleasure.

 

 

 

 I have never been a huge fan of tires for garden beds but as I inherited 4 large tractor-trailer tires with the property when we purchased it, I decided to make some use of them rather than pay to dispose of them. I have to admit that they don’t look nearly as bad in our garden as a raised bed as they did as flower planters in our driveway area. Plus I think that it helped to dress them up a bit by cutting out a portion of the sidewall to open up the planting area. To do this the way that I did you will need the following:

• Drill with a large drill bit
• Saw capable of cutting through metal (I used my reciprocating saw with a metal blade, but a jigsaw with a metal blade or even a handsaw with a metal blade would do the trick, although that’s going to take more elbow grease than I wanted to invest.)
• Tire of whatever size you choose
• Soil and any soil amendments (This is going to depend on what pH range you are trying to achieve in the bed based on the plants you will be planting there.)
• Newspaper or cardboard (If you opt for the newspaper, make sure that it is black and white print, not color print as it could potentially contain heavy metals.)
• Paint or some way to cover the outside of the tire if they are exposed to sun as they can really heat up the soil and damage your plants.

I started off by selecting my tires and drilling a hole large enough for my saw blade to fit through.  In my case I arbitrarily selected a 1-1/4″ hole saw bit.

I then cut out the top sidewall using my reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade.  If you try to use a wood blade it is not likely to last long.  Especially on a semi-truck tire due to the metal bands in the sidewall (which you can see in the picture of the hole in the sidewall)  Just a side note, the sidewall piece that is cut out can be used to go around a small tree. If it won’t fit over the tree then just cut through the tire which will allow you to open it and place it around a larger tree.  You can then use a small amount of mulch to help cover the tire.  This will prevent weeds from growing up around the base of the tree and will allow for some water retention.  Or you could recycle the sidewall that you don’t need.

I then flipped the tire over and drilled a series of holes in the bottom.  Again, I arbitrarily selected an 11/32″ bit to give me a large hole but not excessively large.  Some websites will tell you to cut our the bottom sidewall as well due to water retention, but I don’t think it is necessary. Mine have drained just fine and my plants have grown very well in these tire planters. If you cut out the other sidewall the tire will become very “floppy” for lack of a better term.  If you just leave it as is, water is going to collect and you will eventually get root rot and you will have a swamp garden rather than a nice raised garden bed.  To give me a happy medium I drilled a series of holes along the highest ridge of the sidewall.  This allows for water collection but only to the depth that I choose allowing a slow draining of the water above the line of the drain holes.  

 

At this point I moved the tires to the location I selected and leveled them. Lay down your barrier (whichever you chose, cardboard or newspaper) and place the tire on top of it.  Then you can start filling the tire with soil.  The larger and higher the tire the more soil will be required so if you don’t want to break the bank hauling in garden soil keep your final bed size in mind.  Especially if you are stacking them for greater height.  A raised tire bed 3-1/2′ tall and 3′ in diameter will require nearly a yard of dirt which can get very costly indeed.  

 

 

I used two (large) wheelbarrow loads of sand from another location on my property, a bag and a half of soil and manure mixture, 25 lbs of Black Cow Manure, a good size scoop of lava sand, a sprinkling of 13-13-13 fertilizer, a sprinkling of worm castings, a sprinkling of dried molasses, a sprinkling of coffee grounds, and a sprinkling of ground egg shells.  This seems to be a fairly good mix for me to give me a middle-of-the-road pH for our onions and garlic as that is what is going in this bed.  The mixture you use should be based on what your main soil pH is, what is going in the bed, and what amendments you need to get to the pH for those plants.

I then leveled the dirt in the bed and my wife planted away.  These particular green onions and garlic plants are heirloom plants and actually came from a large farm that is in the family.  This line goes back to the mid- to late 1800’s so we are excited to have them in our garden.  We are hoping that we can keep them going on our own farm for a lifetime.  Enjoy your new planter.  For some neat ideas on how to dress up your tire garden check out this tutorial.  I have plans to build a simple cedar box around ours and when I do I will update.  Have a great day and God bless!