Do you often find yourself looking for something different to do?
Do you find that the gym offers no real challenge?
Are you often longing for a way of quickly tiring yourself out?
Do you long for a way of combining money saving with exercise and environmentally-friendly construction?
Yes? They tyre ramming is for you!

I took to the tyre wall today, with the plan of learning how easy/hard it is to ram a tyre with earth, and build a wall. I learnt quickly that it is not something for the faint hearted to take on. If you are thinking of building something from tyres, get this fact straight – it is hard work!

My dad and I tackled digging out the slope enough to foot the first few tyres down. Once we had them in place, filling them with earth was easy, and you then jump, hammer and sledge-hammer them for a good half hour before you find the tyre looks finished. A few more whacks with a sledge tells you that you probably are about halfway! Honestly, its amazing how much earth and stone you can cram into one tyre.

The tyre wall in construction
The garden as of this afternoon.
Before and After on the first tier

They are sitting fairly level now, and I think this first wall is going to be five tyres high, maybe 6. Tomorrow, I’ll have to get out of there and measure up how wide the wall will be, so I can get an idea of how many tyres I’m going to need. With one morning spent, we have four tyres in place, and four ready to be hammered. On early estimates, I would say that the wall is going to take around 100 tyres, so plenty of mornings left to work!

With that in mind, I sent out a volunteer newsletter yesterday. I am planning to get everyone involved in volunteering near the end of April. From the 16th to the 22nd, I’ll be in the garden (weather permitting) so if you fancy an escape from the gym, and fancy building some muscles, or if you want to help out in other ways, like planting some vegetables, and digging out some vegetable patches, you are more than welcome to come on down. Give me an email, tweet me, or leave a comment here, and I’ll be happy to sort out arrangements for a visit down.