[mrs tweedy]

Can anyone tell me if it is safe to use a stack of car tyres to grow veg in.  I grew potatoes in them last year and I am still here, but someone has told me the rubber may contaminate the vegetables.  2-3 tyres can make a fairly good sized container and really increased my growing space and produced a good crop for me.  Anyone had any similar experience?

[JulieWall]

Bob Flowerdew has been doing if for years and he isn't dead yet. I think you should just go ahead, if we worried about every possible contaminant we'd never eat anything again. Bob Flowerdew recommends packing the rims with straw or newspaper to economise on compost.

[Bionic]

If you are worried about it why not cover the inside with some sort of plastic sheeting.
When we made some raised beds we used old railway sleepers (never again as the creosote kept bleeding the whole time) but we covered the inside with bin bags. To stop it containing ting the soil.


It worked for us and we have a good crop of all sorts of fits and pieces

[Ina]

I also use tyres for growing - at the moment it's only parsley and a sprouting broccoli in one stack, but I have quite a few tyres knocking about and intend to use more of them...

[Sbom]

I use tractor tyres, they make great raised beds 

[polaris]

We had a tyre garden at primary school years and years ago, think we had about 12 stacks of four with everything growing. We're all still here 

[goosepimple]

..or put a perforated bin liner in - cut the bottom if you want it open ended at ground level.


Big recommendation for Bob Flowerdew's book - my one is probably an old copy now, but it's still the best out of all our books, maybe a 'used' on Amazon for cheap, it's fab.

[shygirl]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=664278800275910&set=a.297417340295393.60964.282115815158879&type=1&theater

i think it looks lovely

[RUSTYME]

It all depends on what the individual is prepared to accept or put up with really .
Yes we eat chemicals and poison the soil , the sea , the air every day , but we are all still here , not really the answer is it ?
Yes we are still here , but how many get cancer , or other terrible things ?
Fish in the sea are part plastic now , due to the breakdown of plastic , (that we dump in the sea) , into microscopic particles .
The list is endless .
Even fresh spring water off the shelf in 'plastic' bottles , contains certain poisons given off by the plastic .
Food grade plastic is better than other types , but even babies bottles leach poison chems , as does the container the milk power is in !
Tyres leach out chemicals for sure , i did look it up once and would rather not put the chems in the soil , then into the plants and thus into me , but that is my choice .
I am trying to be as free as i can of man made chems/poison , it isn't easy , but growing my food in it when the soil is underneath seems a bit strange to me .
Saying that , i do have some plastic flower pots that i use . I used to only use clay pots , but they are so dear now , and i have no money ( my choice , i did say it wasn't easy ) , i use s/h plastic pots when i have to .
I mainly try to grow directly in the ground though .
Personally , i limit the poison i eat as much as i can . Some people pump roundup over their ground wtf ? , but that is their choice . Even that affects other people though , run off into ditches , streams , the water table etc , but Monsanto says it is safe , yeah !
20% of agricultural land in China is contaminated with heavy metals , industrial pollution ,  i bet the figure is higher than that , yet they are still here , doesn't really answer the problem as far as i am concerned .
Not having a dig at anyone . Just saying i try not to use things like tyres and why .
Like i said we all have different levels of acceptance .

[mrs tweedy]

Well, thanks everyone for taking the time to reply - very informative.  I do stuff the edges with newspaper, especially if they are a deep profile tyre, it not only economises on compost but helps keep moisture in too - I don't remember where I read that.  I know what you're saying about chemicals leaching, but the roots still go into the ground, the tyres are really just to get some depth and it means I can use ground I wouldn't normally cultivate, i.e alongside pathways.  It also stops certain crops spreading everywhere, such as mint and keeps everywhere tidier.  Thanks again.

[Ina]

I stuffed the bottom of sides of my tyres with daggings... Holds water and increases fertility.

[JulieWall]

The way I see this business of using tyres to grow things in is that every tyre we 'liberate' from the pile for disposal is one less to get burnt or sent into the environment in some other noxious way. I think there's an argument for slow release against quick disposal and the attendant pollution from that. Ok, disposed of somewhere else means it's not in my food but it's still in someone else's lungs, water, soil or whatever ...... there's no good answer really
We really ought to go back to using glass bottles for milk and other liquids, they don't leech chemicals and can be washed and re-used saving the need for recycling. Anyone remember taking bottles back to the shop for the deposit money?

[Lesley Silvester]

Oh yes. and I knew a family who kept a small caravan on a site near the sea. The mum and  children would go down for the whole of the summer holidays while Dad joined them at weekends. By the end of the summer the children would have made a lot of money just by beachcombing and taking the bottles back to the offie.

[shygirl]

this is really interesting, what chemicals would you get from a tyre? they do stink though so i guess they must have something in them, id never thought about it before.
they use tyres at our school to protect young trees. the best use iv seen for them (excluding horse jumps - ha) is the tyre bales designed to go under muddy gateways.
is there much difference in eating food from a tyre - and eating cattle who have eaten haylage and feed from plastic wrap/bales.

[cloddopper]

It depends on the type of tyre used for many have different formula's for their  rubber or artificial rubber compounds .  Your best looking in  search engine or two for "  pollutants in old car tyres " to get an idea.
Even then the lists you'll read are not comprehensively bang up-to-date as tyre research & new formula production is a 24 / 7 thing .