Growing Potatoes in Tyres

Sunday, 7 February 2010

If you listened to gardeners question time this week you might have heard a nice lady, Mrs Elizabeth Gladman talking about her experiences growing potatoes in tyre stacks. She had pretty dismal results. Not surprising as, under her husbands advice, she had set the potatoes growing in straw - not the best growing medium Bob Flowerdew noted.

Bob did go onto to say that she could get bumper crops out of tyres stacks if done right. Glad to hear it as our entire potato crop will be grown in tyre stacks next to the shed. The benefit of using tyres as far as I can see are:

1) Rubber is highly insulating and will protect the tubers from late frosts, uinlike those plastic (over-priced) containers being sold in the shops. This means we can start the earlies very early.
2) The stacking nature means we can add height easily to allow us to earth-up around the haulms (the green tops).
3) The volume of soil you can get into three tyres stacked up is enormous - this scale makes it easier to keep the containers from drying out when your not around for a few days.
4) This is super-recycling - no energy, except man power, is required to convert them into useful garden hardware.

We've been collecting tyres for the last few weeks from the garage around the corner - picking through the industrial garbage whilst the neighbours look on, wondering whether they should call the police. We have eight so far and need another four for to complete the arrangement:

3x stacks of three tyres for the potatoes - two for Charlotte, one for Foremost
3x single tyres for lettuce (these will sit infront of the potatoes to break-up the rubber wall affect)

Taking advatage of the fine weather this morning we set about removing the rims from the tyres. This was done by steadily scoring through the rim with a Stanley Knife, before moving onto a hacksaw. The best way to do this is to give yourself a flatish surface to saw through by bending the rim towards you as you cut - see first photo.

Biggest sign of progress this week - the raised bed was in 'full sun' for about an hour this afternoon. That's the first time in two months. As you can see by this photo taken from the drawing room it was weak, but sunlight none the less.

John Cushnie

Friday, 8 January 2010

Greatly saddened by the sudden death last week of the straight-talking, but lovely and ever entertaining John Cushnie, one of our favourite panelists on Gardeners' Question Time. He will be greatly missed by many.

Getting Started

Wednesday, 6 January 2010

Our first entry for the Hackney Veg patch blog (will anyone other than Stephen read this.....? ok ok, Hi Mam). I'm Nicholas Ridley-Wilson, some like to call me NRW, my boyfriend is Stephen Derbyshire - we like gardneing, we love our home in Stoke Newington and this is the story of our veg patch.

We are now over the Christmas excess and have been busy preparing our new and very fabulous raised bed which is filled with the very best cow poo the south of England had to offer us on a cold and wet Sunday morning. Being one of the coldest winters of record we have had to take precautions to ensure that the bed doesn't fail us in the coming months, therefore it is now toasty and warm with a big plastic sheet over it. Of course this isn't sufficient in the long run so Stephen has been doing extensive research into various erect plastic apparatus (cloches) that will protect our wee seedlings when the sowing season commences - I can't wait. Can you?

While drinking various Christmas alcoholic concoctions over the past week or so our gardening hasn't come to an absolute halt, we have been very busy looking though seed catalogues and websites, including incluiding our favourite Thompson and Morgan and Suttons, ordering a plethora (love that word) of culinary and green delights that will see us though the next year. Naturally this list of seeds were cross referenced from various sources to ensure we have the best variety (thank you to Gardeners Question Time expert Bob Flowerdew - we love you man). Our seed box is half full and once the others arrive we will be on our way to the "Goode Life". We have even bought some blueberry plants which are currently being held hostage at the post office and I will get the tomorrow, I promise.

Well, if you managed to get to the end of this very uneventful first entry congrats - expect more exciting news when the weather gets hotter and the days get longer.