There are many herbs that can grow out of control if you let them. A little bit of containment goes a long way for your frustrations if you want to grow these herbs. Things like mints and lemon balm are very useful herbs to have growing for many reasons, but they get out of control very quickly. I hate to spend money on things like flower pots. They are far more expensive than they need to be, I think. So I set out on my way to find the perfect containment for my wonderful herbs.

Old tires, of course! They cost money to get rid of and people don’t generally want them around, so they are easy to come by. I have 8 tires so far and I will get 4 planters out of them. The whole thing is very simple. All you have to do is fill the tires with dirt for the herbs to grow in. I chose to use sticks and leaves to help to fill my tires for the organic matter. This will eventually settle as the leaves rot, but I don’t mind having to add more later, and I will likely have to add a lot. The herbs I will be planting are quite hardy and will tolerate being replanted. Try to stuff the walls of the tires the best you can so that you don’t have air pockets for critters to live. And that’s it! Yes, old tires are ugly, I know. I don’t mind looking at them if I have some nice bushy plants growing in them. You can also paint them if you want to.

I’m not attempting to be an environmentalist, but there are old tires everywhere. There are too many tires in the landfills to ever get rid of them all. It is a wonderful idea to try to use the tires for free building materials rather than buying new things that will also eventually end up in a landfill. There are many websites out there with many ideas on fantastic projects that you can do with old tires. From these tire planters, to playgrounds, to houses. Please, check it out!

Check out my post on junk collecting!

Another great junk project I will be doing is building an outdoor shower. Here is the site I have started preparing: