Growing your own vegetables is not only healthy, but fun. Even if you live in an area where there is limited space or in cooler regions, you can have fresh vine-ripened tomatoes by growing them in tires. The tire can act as make-shift greenhouse, enabling faster plant growth and more fruit or as a raised bed for urban gardeners. Raising tomatoes in tires is also environmentally friendly, as you recycle the old tire and put them to good use.
Raised Bed Method
- Place your tires in a sunny location, with at least 6 to 8 hours of sunlight each day; one tire can hold up to three tomato plants. When making a raised bed you create soil mixture that goes inside the tire, so you can place the tires in any sunny spot, even outside your back door.
- Mix your soil for the raised bed. A good soil for growing tomatoes includes a mixture of equal parts garden soil and organic matter. Organic matter can be peat moss or composted manure. Tomatoes thrive in calcium-rich soil, so adding egg shells, bone meal, peat moss or seaweed helps produce bigger fruit.
- Sow the seeds or plants into the soil. Place three seeds in one tire and space them about three inches apart and one-half inch deep.
- Water until the soil is moist, but not soaked. Put mulch around the tires to help keep the soil moist and to hide the tires, if you find them unsightly. Tomatoes require about 1 to 2 inches of water per week.
