I have been quite obsessed with tires as a building material. I know many people dislike them because of the chemicals that can potentially leech out, but I love them. My first tire project was a sand box for the kids. After seeing how easy it was and how nicely they held plants I decided to make a strawberry pyramid. There is a local tire shop that is quite used to me now. In fact they searched around and brought me the top tire of the pyramid because they knew I would love the texture of the tread. I do indeed love it!
To start I laid out my tire pattern. Once I decided how to stack the tires I cut the sidewall off of one side of each tire. I then laid out the bottom tires and filled them with dirt. That beautiful little car in the pictures is what I used to transport compost from the neighbors horses. I had a big tarp (the one in the picture) in the trunk and I filled it up. It took several trips but I’m happy with the results.
The kids LOVED to climb this. In fact our daughter couldn’t walk but she could climb this thing like a champ. We got so interesting over here that the ducks even had to come investigate:
Like our pile of materials? All of those pallets went to the tree line to help with wind protection. We had some bushes die last winter. The boards went to various projects.
As for the strawberries, I did plant and they grew pretty well. Not a harvest-able amount but my son was happily picking and eating whenever a berry turned red. I have more berries to plant this spring so I hope we get enough for shortcake. Unfortunately, I foolishly didn’t take any more pictures of it and there is nothing to see right now. I will update in summer 2015.
As far as strawberry varieties, I really want to see if I can get some amazing ones growing. I’ve bought the following seeds/roots:
Pineberry
So far the pineberry has not germinated. I have had success with growing strawberries from seed in the past, so I’m hoping the seeds will germinate soon. If not I will buy the bare root plants I found on Amazon. I really want to try the pineberry variety.
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