Tools

[digitS']

Short-handled spading forks are for prying perennials out of the ground - a worthy use. And, they are for lifting dirt . . . yikes! who wants to lift wet, sticky, crusted with rocks, heavy dirt ??!? I just want to slice into it and loosen it like sifted cake flour.

I didn't realize that those Wolf Garten tools have interchangeable handles . Just thought that shipping the heads and letting customers find handles locally made sense. Ah! There's more sense here than meets the American eye. Those Germans are darn clever folks. "The man that owns the garden center is from Holland . . ." Dutch, too. I have the good fortune to have a Dutch surname which means absolutely nothing because the first grandfather showed up in North America during colonial times . The Mormons have done what they could at tracing the family but it looks like conjecture to me after these folks got away from the Atlantic coast .

"White painted tires?" Good Goobley Goo! Don't be giving my neighbor with the tire pile any ideas! In his defense, he once had an awful lot of tomato plants in 'em . . . Not that I'm an admirer of that approach - but lacking the tomato plants, they are just a stack of ugly tires on the landscape - !

"Broadfork?" I've long considered buying one of these despite their Neiman Marcus price tags. Right now, I've reached such an imbalanced physical state that I don't think I could move the double handles with equal pressure .

Steve

 

[Hencackle]

Steve--don't show your neighbor this link, LOL tire planters
Those are fancy compared to the ones I'm talking about--the kind that look like worn-out tires that got slapped with white paint and stuffed with some sad looking petunias. Of course, that particular yard will have some white painted rocks and a couple of pink flamingos! Even some of the tree trunks get painted, way up higher than a rabbit can chew. I wish I had a picture to show you--it would be something Jeff Foxworthy would joke about.

However tacky the tires are in the front yard, they do make it easier for some people to raise potatoes. I've thought about it but I'm wondering if there's anything nasty that will leach out into the soil. Anybody know if there's more to a tire than vulcanized rubber? Are they "safe" for organic gardening?

Congrats on your Dutch heritage, Steve. Too bad you didn't get more information from your genealogical search. My dad's parents are from Greece and I regret that my Dad didn't celebrate his heritage and teach me the language. Too bad my grandparents (now deceased) lived in another state and I rarely got to see them. I always have Greek basil in my garden, maybe a Thessaloniki tomato in honor of my heritage.

 

[Rosalind]

Anybody know if there's more to a tire than vulcanized rubber?

Yes. Up to, oh, 200 ingredients, but the most common are:

Latex (not harmful unless you're allergic)
EPDM (also not especially harmful, it's just plastic)
Nitrile rubber (not healthy, but probably won't kill you either, smells kinda bad though)
Sulfur (should be mostly reacted in a tire, a small amount could hypothetically turn to sulfuric acid but I doubt it)
Petroleum wax (small amounts, not food grade, can leach yucky solvent)
Antioxidants--not the healthy kind in veggies, but the nasty kind which are not meant to be used in humans for any reason. Wingstay, Santowhite, and Vulkanox are all foul things unless you are a car, truck, train or airplane.

Plasticizer--this is what you should be most concerned about. All plastics everywhere that contain plasticizers, leach them. Most plastics and rubbers do contain plasticizer, including tires. Plasticizers make the rubber soft and pliable; otherwise it would be rock-hard. Dioctylphthalate and other phthalates are not thought to kill anyone immediately, but have shown some carcinogenicity in lab rats. Since no one has ever deliberately eaten/drunk any, no one really knows. It's thought to cause liver damage eventually, and have some chronic effects--that is, if you're exposed to it all the time (as in eating stuff grown in tires leaching the stuff), eventually your reproductive organs and DNA might get damaged.

Stick to ornamentals in the tire planters. Seriously.

 

[Hencackle]

Thanks, Rosalind. Its been a few years since I've had organic chemistry--I actually miss the lectures and lab because it was so much fun. HARD, but fun. A little tidbit about vulcanized rubber--it was once used to make dentures! (I'm a former dental lab tech)

EPDM--I'm familiar with it. My husband is a roofing contractor and people have asked him to get pieces of it for fish ponds. I tell them to stick to the rubber made specifically for ponds.
You're so right about plasticizers...IMO, I think it's bad to microwave food in plastic. (I don't even own a microwave). I suspected plasticizers are added to tires otherwise they would end up as brittle as some of the old rubber bands in my junk drawer.

I've been using the wire cages that hold stone in place on a pallets--one of these snipped in half make 2 nice potato cages. Then, I line the cages with the brown paper portion of chicken feed bags to keep the dirt inside the cage. From that point on, it's basically the same method of growing potatoes in cages. I think I'll just stick to my method....

 

[digitS']

Yes. Up to, oh, 200 ingredients, but the most common are: . . .

Weeellllll . . . .

This is all good to know! Thank you, Rosalind.

Steve