# Tire Potato Planter.



## dragon5126 (Nov 30, 2008)

I'm a bit miffed, The pics I had of this seem to have been eaten by the pic gremlin. I cant take credit for the idea just a modification of it. 

It seems the one thing most of us have in common is limited space for gardening. Raised gardens produce more but still take square footage. here is a simple one that takes less space that I gleaned and tried from on the net. Simply put stack some tires, the bigger they are the better, fill them with some loamy soil and plant potatoes in them. Remember spuds like loose sandy soil that is full of vegetable matter (peat). What I did is stack three with two fence posts keeping them together,,, I cut most of the side wall out on the top of the bottom tire, both sides of the middle and top to allow more surface area and drilled drain holes in all the remaining sidewall areas except on the bottom one. This allowed the bottom tire to retain water without flooding the spuds out. Others have commented on adding the second and third tire and more soil as the spuds sprout and grow I havent tried this yet and intend to this year but have had a substanitai crop in this set up. to harvest just remove a tire at a time ans scoop the soil into a container to save it, then whe done reassemble and refill, cover for the next season unless you are in the perpetual growth belt, where I would suggest planting a different root crop to keep the soil fresh as crop rotation is very important. and remember, keep a compost pile and add red worms to it to reduce the need for fertilizer (and having to buy fish bait)


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## Immolatus (Feb 20, 2011)

I would like to see a pic. Gremlin begone!
I want to try planting some taters this year also. I dont think I will have to resort to a raised bed, I dont have a ton of space but this would be a trail run anyway. No way the girl (or the HOA Im sure) will let me put tires in our yard.
Dont tires contain undesirable elements that you wouldnt want in your garden material? Wouldnt they leach into the soil?


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## k0xxx (Oct 27, 2011)

Just do a Yahoo or Google image search with the words "potato tire garden" and you'll get a lot of hits. There also some YouTube videos on planting this way. I've heard that you can plant potatoes a little earlier than normal with this method, as the black tires absorb warmth from the sun and in turn warm up the soil.

If you are worried about the tires leaching chemicals into the soil, you can do the same thing with wood. Make four corners out 1x6's standing on end, and 1x6 sides. fill with dirt, adding sides and dirt as the potato plants grow. The first side pieces are screwed in place, but the next levels can be held in place by the dirt. Below is a rough representation of what I'm talking about. I'm no artist so forgive the rather crude drawing. We actually used cedar fence board and we got about 6 years of use out of them before they started falling apart.


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## baconexplosion (Jan 7, 2012)

I've seen a lot of discussions regarding tire spuds. There are many people that swear by it. I for one don't like the idea of planting my food in man made petroleum based containers. 

I'll stick to simply mounding up dirt, or use some old boards or pine board to build a container.

However, I’m no chemist. If it works for you and you are not concerned about any potential issues with chemical compounds I say good work! I won't knock anyone for doing it.

Make use of what you can and learn to be independent of the global industrial food system. At some point (sooner rather than later I think) it will break down.


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## catsraven (Jan 25, 2010)

I plan on using totes. Using tires in Texas would bake them before we got a chance to dig them up


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## DJgang (Apr 10, 2011)

I've got an old plastic garbage can, i am going to drill holes and start with some soil, moss and a little compost.

Plant potatoes, let 'em vine about six inches, cover with soil, leaving about an inch of plant and just continue doing that.

Just goggle growing potatoes in container.

Deer and rabbits eat all my potatoes every year, I am going to try this and hopefully we will get a few this year.


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## ContinualHarvest (Feb 19, 2012)

DJgang said:


> I've got an old plastic garbage can, i am going to drill holes and start with some soil, moss and a little compost.
> 
> Plant potatoes, let 'em vine about six inches, cover with soil, leaving about an inch of plant and just continue doing that.
> 
> ...


Eat the deer and rabbits, it's only fair


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## Hooch (Jul 22, 2011)

Personally I wouldnt use tires...leeching chemicals..I might as well go buy taters at the store if I did that all full of nastys...juz sayin

growing taters in containers like buckets is super easy...and you can move the buckets around 

I have a compost pile that I throw more heavier type of stuff on that i want to compost; stuff that takes longer to break down..anyways..its next to my compost bin and my bale of hay. Ok so one year I threw some lil harvested taters in the bin...they grew and expanded to the pile and hay pile and I had yukon gold taters the size of footballs for 2 years in a row. Im not kidding...
Every year I get volunteers since and I get some big one as large as my foot but most are normal size and very tasty. so I just keep throwing straw and whatnot to that area. Taters dont need much attention out here apparently but alittle water now and then in summer. 
one could go muck out a local barn or just by a bale of straw and grow some nice one's...
good luck


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## JoKing (Mar 11, 2012)

DJgang said:


> I've got an old plastic garbage can, i am going to drill holes and start with some soil, moss and a little compost.
> 
> Plant potatoes, let 'em vine about six inches, cover with soil, leaving about an inch of plant and just continue doing that.


How is sun light getting to the plant if it's down inside a trash can?

I've seen a wood frame type which had sliding slats in the front. Supposedly, you can harvest in stages without uprooting the whole plant.

Also, I've seen for sale, tomato/potato plants. I don't know if it's a gimmick or not, but the two plants are cousins and are grafted.


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## lilmissy0740 (Mar 7, 2011)

For the past 2 years we just took wire, made it into a circle. Place some taters we then covered with straw or leaves. The first yr, we had a bumper crop. The second yr not so good. But that yr we covered with a large amount of grass clippings. Not sure if that had anything to do with a poor crop or not. I am planting mine today in wire. Will toss in some peat.


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## DirtyHarry (Mar 8, 2012)

You don't really need anything to grow potatoes. You can just lay pieces of potato on some loose soil and cover them with two inches of soil. As they grow just put more soil up around them. The new potatos form at the ground level of where you planted them. That is why you have to hill them. I grow several hundred pounds of potatoes every year. I save the smaller ones for seed for the next year. I tried something new this year. I only dug about half of them in the fall and left the rest in the ground over the winter. I have been digging them the last few days. I now have a new supply of good quality potatoes to eat this summer and lots more for planting. I have also tried leaving carrots in the ground over the winter. Both of these were just perfect in the spring. There were a few potatoes that were too close to the surface and got frozen but not many and this is in Michigan.


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## Katurner55 (Mar 24, 2012)

Do you start with seeds or can you use any old potato?


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## lhalfcent (Mar 11, 2010)

DirtyHarry said:


> You don't really need anything to grow potatoes. You can just lay pieces of potato on some loose soil and cover them with two inches of soil. As they grow just put more soil up around them. The new potatos form at the ground level of where you planted them. That is why you have to hill them. I grow several hundred pounds of potatoes every year. I save the smaller ones for seed for the next year. I tried something new this year. I only dug about half of them in the fall and left the rest in the ground over the winter. I have been digging them the last few days. I now have a new supply of good quality potatoes to eat this summer and lots more for planting. I have also tried leaving carrots in the ground over the winter. Both of these were just perfect in the spring. There were a few potatoes that were too close to the surface and got frozen but not many and this is in Michigan.


wow! if you can do that in Michigan I can do that here in MN! good stuff!:flower:


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## DirtyHarry (Mar 8, 2012)

Katurner55 said:


> Do you start with seeds or can you use any old potato?


You don't need seeds, just a piece of potato. I usually save the small ones to plant. Otherwise just cut them into pieces about the size of B size potatoes. You need 3 or 4 eyes on each piece. If you don't know, the eyes are where the sprouts start. You can even plant potatoes that have started to sprout if the sprouts aren't too big.


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## Kellog (Mar 3, 2012)

lilmissy0740 said:


> The second yr not so good. But that yr we covered with a large amount of grass clippings. Not sure if that had anything to do with a poor crop or not. I am planting mine today in wire. Will toss in some peat.


Grass clippings, especially if they are fresh and green will tend to mat and get too hot as they start to break down. They also tie up nitrogen as they heat up. If you let the grass clippings dry and age a bit, and mix 'em with some other dried veggie material, they will be fine. Same with whole tree leaves...used alone, they can mat and make it hard for the plants to get through, so either shred them or mix them with other material. The peat will help lighten things up. Good luck with your 'tators!


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## lilmissy0740 (Mar 7, 2011)

Thanks Kellog. I wondered if it was the grass clippings. 
DH, did you cover your potatoes well through the winter? If so, what did you use?


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## DirtyHarry (Mar 8, 2012)

lilmissy0740 said:


> Thanks Kellog. I wondered if it was the grass clippings.
> DH, did you cover your potatoes well through the winter? If so, what did you use?


No I didn't cover them but we had a mild winter. If you grow them where they will get plenty of snow cover they will be ok. It wouldn't be a bad idea to cover them with straw or leaves to be safe.


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

I've heard wheat straw bails work great. I haven't had a chance to try it yet but with the hard clay soil we have here I'm going to try it. I have grown red Pontiacs under a layer of deep straw a number of years ago worked okay but I learned the hard way not to use grass straw. I still have an area of really tough grass that grows like crazy even in drier years, not to mention all the other weeds that came in those bales.


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## JoKing (Mar 11, 2012)

I remember reading from a couple of sources that composted saw dust works great if you have access. I can't remember if species 
Matters for the ph level or whatever.


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

JoKing said:


> I remember reading from a couple of sources that composted saw dust works great if you have access. I can't remember if species
> Matters for the ph level or whatever.


When I was pre-teen a neighborhood friends' dad would mix alder sawdust with chicken manure and let it burn off and when I say burn off that's exactly what it did, it got really hot. Anyway the end product really grew some great vegetables.


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## Tribal Warlord Thug (Jan 27, 2009)

was waitin' for someone to post pics of their tater-tires........guess i'll show ya ours from last year


















got more pics somewherez....just need to dig 'em up...............


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## JoKing (Mar 11, 2012)

rabidcoyote666 said:


> was waitin' for someone to post pics of their tater-tires........guess i'll show ya ours from last year
> 
> got more pics somewherez....just need to dig 'em up...............


It looks like before and after pics of a stolen obstacle course lol.


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