worm32

How to Make a Whizbang 
Tire Sidewall Cloche

Young squash under a tire sidewall cloche

The above picture comes from an online essay I posted titled, My Squash Planting Secret. If you go to that essay you'll learn about Whizbang B.O.F. holes, and you'll learn more about tire sidewall cloches.

Pumpkins are squashes too. And tire sidewall cloches are perfect for getting pumpkins off to a good start. In November of 2009 I posted a little photo tutorial to my Deliberate Agrarian blogazine showing how we process pumpkins into puree to freeze and use for making  pumpkin-pie-like pudding. ClickHere to go to the tutorial (with the pudding recipe).

This picture (above) shows tire sidewall cloches in conjunction with sheet-metal mulch. To learn more about sheet-metal mulch (an awesome gardening idea) and see this same view of my garden with the squash plants full grown, ClickHere.

The picture above shows some tire sidewall cloches in my garden. I don't remember what I was growing under these but they might be cucumbers. The T-post trellis span is ready to finish off when the plants are un-cloched.

Larger Tire Cloches
(on a low-rider tire bed)

(page 47 in the book)

The above picture shows a tire bed with some radishes. I have had a difficult time growing radishes in my garden because flea beetles like them so much. But it's easy to grow radishes under a cloched tire bed. That's not a lot of radishes, but we don't eat a lot of radishes. A few are nice to have, and any more would go to waste.

The wire frame pieces are made using #9 galvanized clothesline wire, like shown in the above picture. I buy it at the local "Do-It-Best" home center. The wire cuts easily with some heavy wire cutters, bends without a lot of difficulty, and holds its shape. I use the same wire to make T-post trellis span Y-holders.

Those are big-cloche wire supports on top of a Whizbang garden shed. In the background you can see that about 2/3 of my garden space is not yet planted. It's mid-June and I think I'm more behind than I've ever been with my garden plantings. But there is still time.

And there is the radish tire bed with it's row cover in place. The flea beetles can eat some of those weeds instead of my radishes.

Update— The picture above shows how nicely the radish plants have grown inside the cloched tire bed. At this point, I have removed the cover and will start harvesting the radishes. Once the radishes are to this point, and being harvested, flea beetles are not the problem they would have been when the plants were just getting started.

Larger Sidewall Cloches

(as shown at the top of page 47)

The pictures below show how I planted three broccoli seedlings in a large tire sidewall cloche. They also show Violet Purdy Biddle's "puddle planting," as discussed in the 1899 excerpt on page 60 of the book. Once the seedlings are established (last picture) the fabric, wire supports, and sidewall can be removed.