Just because a tyre is too old and worn to use on a car, it doesn’t mean that it’s useful life is over.

Here’s our top five reuses for used tyres.

1. Planters for the garden

Used tyres can be used as instant planters in a garden – either wide and low containers on their own, or stacked up on top of each other to form higher planters. Some people think they’re ideal for things that need earthing up (like potatoes) or forcing (like rhubarb) as you can add and remove layers as needed.

However, other people are reluctant to grow vegetables in old tires since they can leach chemicals used in their manufacture into the soil and into the food.

2. Cold frames

Alternatively, used tyres can be used to make quick and easy cold frames to protect young seedlings. Place a tyre on the ground (so the plants aren’t sat on the cold earth) then place a piece of flat wood or some slats on top of that, and add another tyre to be the walls of the cold frame. Use an old window in a frame or piece of scrap perspex/clear plastic as the roof to let the sun in. For extra insulation/heat retention, fill the lower tyre and the walls of the upper tyre with straw or similar.
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Well, this isn’t so much as “reuse or recycle” question as saying “instead from leaving them there to rot, can conkers be used for anything fun or practical?” It is kinda a “reduce this” question too – can I reduce my use of something else by using conkers instead?

I picked up some conkers on a dog walk at the weekend – I couldn’t help myself because fresh from their slick shells, they’re a delight to touch – so shiny & smooth. Could they be used for decorative crafts? Any techniques for preserving the lustre?

Conkers are more correctly known as horse-chestnuts but they’re a completely different species to sweet chestnuts and are actually poisonous. Apparently though that poison can be harnessed for good – bowls of conkers can be used to deter spiders & moths from moving into your home/wardrobe.

And of course, they can be used for playing conkers.

Anyone know of anything else that can be used for?

(Photo by fredb2)

Frequent commenter on Recycle This, Linda, the bookstorebabe, emailed to tell us about a recipe for using up apple peel and cores:

I just read this on Craftster, about making jelly from the peels and cores of apples. Seems like a nice way to use something that otherwise would be composted. Especially if you’re making apple pie or such like. No, I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan on it! And I follow your website, so just thought I’d pass along the link. The first page has the recipe, the second page has some info I didn’t know about how jelly jells and such.

You have a lovely website – full of so many useful ideas!

Great link, thanks! I love recipes that use up the bits of food usually thrown in the compost bin – especially at the moment when so many people are cooking up gluts of apples.

Another reuse for apple peels is to make apple cider vinegar – either using a wild fermentation method or using cultivated winemaker’s yeast.

We also feed chopped apple peel/cores to our chickens – an indirect way of putting them in the compost really.

Any other suggestions? What do you do with your peels and cores?

Nearly every time we go out for a walk at the moment, we seem to find a new set of berries aching to be picked. And every time that happens, we kick ourselves for not having a bag with us.

After our discussion about making one earlier in the year, I have a trug-ish basket for gentle, slow foraging but I like the idea of a dedicated small fruit/berry harvesting bag – something that either hangs from my shoulder (possibly across my body for extra stability) to leave both hands free for collecting.

I could just use a long handled shopping bag but after seeing a post about purpose-bought harvesting bags at The Cottage Smallholder, I wondered about making one with a bit more structure than my floppy shoppers – I imagine it would protect the berries/fruit from accidentally squishing and hold the bag open so it’s easy to drop fruit in it with both hands full. (The more structured bag could be used as a general shopping bag too during the rest of the year so it’s not just a one-off use.)

So any suggestions/ideas/thoughts on how to make one?

The shape of the Cottage Smallholder’s one reminds me of a small pop-up laundry basket – a reuse for a (clean) old one of those maybe?

After posting my The Really Good Life post about fishing for fruit with a child’s fishing net, I read about someone making a similar net with an old wire coathanger and the gusset of some old tights — I wonder if another gusset could be used to make a basket – the fabric would be light, quick-drying and smooth on the fruit.

Another idea might be to crochet it – crocheting “net” shopping bags is easy-peasy but I’d have to make sure the holes didn’t stretch so much that the fruit would escape. I’d also have to add the structure to it – any suggestions for doing that? An old record might make a fun base plate but what about something to hold it open at the top?

I always feel a bit silly asking for suggestions for vegetable/garden waste because the vast majority of the time, it just goes in the compost bin, job done — but sometimes I think it’s worth asking because what is a common place use/reuse to someone is completely mindblowing to the next (for example, the broccoli stalk issue).

I thought it would be worth asking about squash (above) and marrow/courgette/zucchini (below) leaves because our garden is full of them and some of them are massive – when they stop finally fruiting, that’s going to be a LOT of vegetable matter going in the compost bin. Obviously not the end of the world – they’ll make nice compost for next year and it’ll nicely balance out our browns in there – but still.

From what I’ve read, chickens aren’t so keen to eat them so they’re probably not good for them. What about other livestock? If it’s veggie livestock, the leaves will end up in the compost anyway, just serving another purpose first ;)

My next question was going to be “can we eat them?” but a bit of Googling has already answered that for me – yes, we can eat squash leaves but best stick to the tender new leaves & shoots of summer squash, else they’re a bit tough. They also need peeling too apparently. Anyone had any experience of cooking with them?

Any other reuses for them?