Are Tire Gardens Toxic?
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- Опубліковано 4 вер 2017
- Are tire gardens toxic? Are tire gardens bad? Are tire gardens poisonous? Are tire gardens worse than watching television? Are tire gardens THE MOST EVIL GARDENS IN THE WORLD?
Today we consider the pros and cons of tire gardening.
All of the references in this video to websites and arguments for and against can be found in my article "Are Tire Gardens Toxic? The Case for and Against," which you'll find here:
www.thesurvivalgardener.com/ar...
Tire gardening is one way to reuse tires instead of sending them to a landfill, hence its popularity. Yet many have raised concerns that tires may be toxic, and by using tires in the garden, we may be poisoning ourselves! I admit, before posting my previous video on making tire gardens, I hadn't done all that much research on the topic. Now, after a reader called me out, I have done so... today I share my thoughts.
Tires image credit: cc license via www.flickr.com/photos/crabchick/
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I don't understand why someone doesn't just do a soil test and be done with this debate.
I would rather eat something grown organically in a tire, than most of the GMO crops in the grocery stores. Everything is bad for you these days.
I'll take my chances. I love my tire garden and my ground garden equally. Let's talk about what the big food companies put in your food you pay for at the store or even how food is treated before you buy it.
My favorite playground equipment was the gaint tire painted yellow or green half burried in the asphalt. On good days I climbed on top. On bad days I hid inside watching the spiders. In loving memory of surviving all those childhood dangers, I will paint, upend, and half burry a tire in my over-the-top organic vegetable garden. I may sit on it dreaming about the long ago days when I stood inside the tire.
Seems to me even if some of those things make it into the plant, it would be a very negligible amount. Breathing the dust while driving down the road every day is probably much worse.....
I have used tire stacks in my garden for over 10 years. My potatoes do not taste like tires, my carrots do not taste like tires. Neither do my beans, corn, cucumbers melons, nor do my tomatoes taste like tires. If the tires do leach chemicals, which I doubt they do, then I am hurting no one but myself. That makes it no one's business to criticize or judge me for my gardening methods. I have gardened organically most of my life counting my family's garden when I was a child and my personal garden since 1972. Road pollution is far worse for you than growing a few veggies in tires.
From my observations, life in the soil (which equates to the health of the soil, which equates to health of the plants in that soil) appears to be unaffected around a tire in the garden, as long as there is mulch, and organic matter, and moisture, and live roots, which soil life needs to thrive. There is, undoubtedly, some degree of breakdown in the rubber of a tire over time, just as there would be with any material, but this breakdown appears to be negligible. As for leachate of chemicals from the tires, yes, probably, to some degree, but It seems to me that any leaching of chemicals from tires used in a garden is going to be extremely minimal. Probably no more than you would get from using plastic mulch, or plastic lumber for raised beds.
You are making me nostalgic for the tractor tire gardens my relatives always had on the farm. They planted flowers in them. My cousin even had a stack of different sizes for a gorgeous flower sculpture. She always painted the outside so they wouldn't overheat.
To garden with tires or not, that is a good question but J A points out the obvious, make a soil test and once and for all put this silly back and forth jibber jabber to rest.
Look at this Young Buck! Been following you for a few months, and I love your stuff. Just decided to look into raised tire beds again, given the rising costs of EVERYTHING, and I find this smooth baby faced David. I've seen reports that the tires diffuse their toxicity within the first few months of use, and anything after that is extremely negligible. Tires also help us up north grow things much earlier than we'd be able to in the ground.
Some people just look for a reason to criticize. It's easier to pick apart someone who is actually doing something than it is to do something on their own. I'm so happy with the way you handled this.
people people people..
The manly near-tears of empathy for tires were quite moving. ;)
Are your garden hoses leaching chemicals? How about your drip tubing? How about the treated lumber used to make raised beds? You can make yourself crazy thinking too much... How about the chemicals fed to the cows and now in the manure you spread on your garden? Impossible to get away from nasty stuff these days I think. Not going to worry about tires. Good video.
I have grown potatoes in tire towers and found no difference In the flavor of the potato. I stopped using tires because they are just too much work for me at this time. (I am 72.) I find it much easier to grow them in a furrow filled with leaves and straw. I can harvest them at any time without harming the plant. What is the problem with straw bale gardening? I would like to try that but cannot find any straw bales in my area of Florida. I can get hay but choose not to because I consider it a food source for animals and not a waste product like straw. Thanks for the additional information from the other gardeners that have researched the question of good or bad. Have a great day and may your yams grow tall and bear heavily.) 'D
I think we should all be focused on Fukushima, which is currently still leaking daily radioactive toxins into our oceans and sky since 2008.
Great!
I've just recently found your channel (like a week ago) but I have to say you're doing a great job and I'm sorry people need to pick apart others. That being said, my hubby just asked me last night if we should do a potato garden in the early spring in a tire bed. I'm glad for your video so now I know I should probably just work from our raised bed. We live in the foothills of NC and it's all clay dirt here. Thank you for your video!
The straw bales I used in Alabama were from a small organic farmer. He grew a small amount of grain for personal use and would sell some of his straw bales to gardeners. I know about the herbicide application and thought there was another reason to not use the straw bales. Always know your resources and where they come from. Very true also when trying to obtain manure. Almost impossible for small growers like myself to get uncontaminated material to add to their gardens. Thanks for another good video.
i have an appreciation for your response to criticism, it was refreshing. Additionally you can still use the tires for non-edibles .. or perhaps if you line the tires with a few layers of weed cloth or even a really sturdy tarp it seems that should be fine.