Gardening with Tyres - Recyclable Gardening

Welcome to a new series of articles recyclable gardening. Come and learn how to turn rubbish into growing containers or oil tubs into strawberry towers.

A major source of pollution in the world is old, used car and vehicle tyres.

These tyres are made from thick rubber originally collected from the rubber tree.

Landfill sites and yards are full of them and they are not going anywhere so why not use them to grow plants?

What can you use Recycled Tyres for?

You can use them for growing whatever plants you want to but it works best for growing potatoes and other root vegetables.
A good time to start growing potatoes is around April.
If you are reading this in the autumn don’t worry you could plant swedes, garlic, onions, leeks or salad leaves

What you will need for your Recycled Tyre Garden

Two car tyres- ask your parents to take you to the scrapyard or a garage to find some

Bag of soil- enough to fill a hole two tyres deep

One potato with roots- leave them in a dark cupboard and roots will grow, pick a potato that you know is tasty as well

Help of a strong adult

Gardening hat and gloves on


What to do?

Find a good spot for the potato plant to grow, lots of sunshine is what they like best
With the help of a strong adult stack two tyres together, one on top of the other

Fill the hole in with soil, try to make it as loose as possible for the potatoes to grow nice and big

When the tyre is full of soil dig a hole that is big enough for the potato to fit in plus a little extra space to cover it over with more soil

Place your potato in the hole and cover it with soil

Give the soil a good watering

Just like any other plant take care of it and spend some time to make sure it is happy

Your potatoes should be finished around September but can last longer if left in the soil

See Recyled Plant Pots

Why not have a look at our Kids Gardening Tools