What to do with old tires??

I planted cabbage in mine this year and they are huge.

Someone posted some pictures on here of his garden and it shows the use of old tires around plants. Was a great idea.

I found the thread. It was ZealYouthGuy and the thread is titled:
Our Garden Pics (for those who don't frequent the Garden forum)

You might want to go and take a look?

do like Denis weaver and build a house .
Ive actually considered building a a shed out of them but the wife wants a retaining wall (not bad enough to start shoveling them full )

I learn something every day. I thought rubber came from trees and the black in tires was carbon black?

Fill them with concrete and put a pipe in the middle. Can be used as movable badminton net, clothes line, fence, etc.

Well, actually, no. Current research indicates that there is no off-gassing issue at all with tires -- in fact, according to the study cited at the link below, "Tires are being recommended to absorb off-gassing produced by waste water from communities, industries, and agriculture activities."

http://www.earthship.org/build/offgas.php

Pony!

Most tires now are made of synthetic rubber as it doesnt degrade as fast in sunlight and wears longer than natural latex based rubber.
Though the main health hazard from tires is in burning them and as a breeding ground for skeeters. They dont have any leaching hazards that Ive ever heard off . infact they are being recycled into roofing shingles and ground for use as cushoning playground coverings

There hasn't been anything resembling natural rubber in a tire for quite some time.

we had a volleyball net like that....completely portable and VERY heavy....I donated it to the church youth group!

we have a set of 4 laying across the head of our driveway to keep the OGE meter-reader from driving on the grass....they were originally kept to do potatoes in...

my kids have a tractor tire sandbox

growing up our school in Arnett had a row of small ones that were painted various colors and buried about 1/2way so that it looked like this:
ooo oo oooooo ooo oooooo oo o o ooo the idea was to walk across them without falling off.....the spaces you were to jump to the next tire.....elsewhere on the playground there were also 3 yellow-painted tractor tires planted on edge too: O O O---they were fun to hid inside and to climb on top

Rachel

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I thought the forest fires took care of the old tires!! Seriously, have a life long friend that lives where you do, loves it, wouldn't be anywhere else. Pretty country.

Bob

Couple years ago I used a half dozen of them as miniature cold frames to start tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings in early March -- put clear plastic over the top (left over from covering the windows the winter before), wrote on the plastic what was in which tire in case I forgot. Some days I didn't even have to water because the condensation was enough! It worked great! Plan on doing the same next spring.

~Falcon

I have read that aircraft tires are made of natural rubber,
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one of my neighbors have built corral fence (wall) out of tires, similar to rammed earth, tell a tire place and they may even pay you to take them, and I would think you could use for retaining walls used in a similar manor,

Tires are great to plant flowers in, the tires are very pretty if they are painted white. Great swings too!!!!

Like others have said
put concrete in one with a pole for a tether ball post
stack in a semi circle and fill with dirt for a backstop for a rifle range.
Some farmers in our area also take them to put on their wagons, you don't need a new tire on a wagon or tread for that matter.

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If you have any ditches, lash the tires together with wire (12 ga) and use them as fence. Stand them on end so livestock won't climb on them. If you have goats, wedge a piece of woven wire fence in the hole so they won't crawl through. Anchor both ends and the middle, and you are all set. They will last forever and almost never need repair (if you do it right).

The only "stuff" that comes off a tire is what comes off the tread in the way of dirt and road dirt. By the time you cut and turn it? Nothing. There is no "seepage" of petroleum products the way a sleeper/railroad tie does. NEVER use RR ties for food products. Tires? COMPLETELY safe. Really.

Now, I DID cut and turn a tire that had that sticky stuff inside it to seal a leak? ICK. It's like a super glue board... Before I could turn it BACK the other way? It caught a bird and was a mess... (I'll end up using it as a sticky board to catch mice and rats)

However, I have cut and turned lots of other tires and used them for composting, herbs, potatoes, feeders, around water buckets to keep out the ducks - put them so the "open" side is up so the goats can bend the sides? But the ducks aren't strong enough for that (they dirty the water for the goats), salt block feeders, urns, at the bottom of the cages around the tomatoes, etc, etc, etc. They really DO work great. It's not hype!

I have a really steep hill behind the house that goes down to the creek. We plan to cut and turn enough tires to make steps down to the creek. Start at the bottom, "cut" the area needed to put the turned tire, put it in, fill it, go up one step and repeat until you reach the top. Environmentally safe and secures the bank.

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Oh, and the "rings" left from cutting tires? WONDERFUL big dog frisbees/playthings. Also, I plan to use them in another creek area where there is a lot of erosion. Tie them together so they are like massive chain mail with that orange baling twine (the stuff never breaks down and is stronger than anything. Wire will rust at the creek.) and make a "mat" to put over the erosion and secure with Tposts or chunks of Tposts. I suppose I could plant Stream or Basket willow in the holes... Should work well. I have about 40 rings right now to be used that way. Each tire will give you two (duh) when you cut and turn it.

The only thing about my rim-on planters? I have to put wire cages around them because they are perfect dog-size. The dogs LOVE to curl up in them. Warm, dry, off the ground and cozy.

I have several in with the goats and they like them as well. Just put a round barrel top or something over the exposed rim to make the bottom of the "nest" more comfy for them... Tires are wonderful to play with...

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Radically conservatively un-biased liberal.

http://whitepinesoapworks.com/

I cut the sidewalls out to have more growing area. The growing area is at least doubled by cutting out the sidewall.

I tried cutting out only one (top) sidewall, but this allowed the plants to get rootbound. That is that the roots in the outer portion of the tire would only grow down to the sidewall and then stop. I corrected this by cutting out both the top and the bottom sidewall. This allowed the roots to go lower than the bottom of the tire planter.

I found that the next year I could add another tire right on top of the first one, with both sidewall cut out; and have a planter twice as tall. After the forth year I find myself picking green beans without having to bend over

By cutting the sidewall off of the tire I change the tire into something else. The laws in my state and EPA as far as I can tell refer to "whole" tires. Once it is cut up some it is no longer a "whole tire". It will not hold water. That is the largest argument against having tires around, that they hold water.

I have a huge tractor tire, it is painted red and swirled with white, it is full of 4 o'clocks. The smaller tires are stacked by twos, I usually spray paint them white, I have cucumbers growing in a couple, they have trellises to climb on, other tires are outside the fence, I have cactus planted in them.