[Digger Dan]

I am wondering if Grow Pots are worth the money? They are used with grow bags to give extra growing room for tomatoes etc.




You see them advertised alot on the gardening website shops (e.g. Two Wests & Elliot http://www.twowests.co.uk/TwoWestsSite/product/GP.htm.)

I even see the The Irish Times are offering these through the Readers Offers.
http://readeroffers.irishtimes.com/i-DD-GROWPOTS/Grow-Pots/?search=grow%20pots

But they cost € 21.95 for a set of 3 with the Irish Times but only £14.95 with Two Wests (€17.50). On a completely different topic I can't see why it should cost 25% more for the same thing even allowing for currency variations etc. However, I'm not surprised as we are well used to 'rip off Ireland', maybe Conor Pope could do an article in his Pricewatch column on the value for money of the Irish Times readers "offers"!!

Needless to say I didn't buy any of these but I made up my own for €0.00!

I recycled some used pots by cutting the bottom out of them. I drilled some drain holes near the base of a 2 litre Coke bottle, cut the top off and inserted into the grow bag.





Maybe not as pretty as the Irish Times offer but I reused something that was going to landfill and saved on carbon emissions!!

I'll see whether it does work to give extra crop but I would be interested to see if anyone has had great results from the real thing.

Digger Dan

[Sive]

I'm growing tomatoes for the first time ever this year, and I, too, am using your home-made version of grow-pots which make watering so much easier.
Would you recommend that I also use your coke-bottle watering device ?
I've no experience of watering tomatoes and am a little worried that I'll get it wrong. I have put some small slits in the base of the grow-bags to allow excess water to drain away though.
As for the Irish Times "special" offers...I agree, I think a lot of them are over-priced. I really wonder who buys these things.....and pays the postage too.......

[mcgrueser]

Nice work on your grow pots. I just grow my tomatoes in big pots but was thinking of using finished compost bags for some this year as they'll give more room for the roots.

Do people find more of a difference putting tomatoes in growbags, or growbags and pots, instead of a big pot? Do they give a bigger yield or is it purely a space issue?
I've made myself a polytunnel this year so space isnt really an issue and i didnt want to put the tomatoes in the ground because the soil is actually woeful, hence the reason i'm using pots or bags. So are the pots or the growbags the best option, or is there a significant difference at all?

[SorchaBC]

Are grow pots worth the money? In a word - no! Especially in light of your own ingenius solution! Totally robbing that idea!

Same goes for the little peat pots - that's what toilet roll/kitchen towel inserts are for!

Old jam jars with holes punches in the lids make for fantastic seedling watering cans, and you know those plastic containers your chinese takeaway comes in? Great little seed trays/seed germinators!! We've have some amazing success with them this year, got some seeds I thought would never get going to spring to life.

Reduce/reuse/recycle!

[Katie]

You've done some great recycling of containers there, but I'm a little worried to see you've used a paint tin - is there not a risk of the harmful chemicals leeching into the soil and being absorbed by the plant?

I'm not sure if this is a problem, but I was worried you might end up ingesting some nasty chemicals? Hopefully I'm wrong

I'm very jealous of the size of your plants too! Mine are only about half the size

[Digger Dan]

Katie,

fair point about the paint tins. A couple of the pots I used were for 'Fence King' paint which I used as perservative on timbers of veggie boxes. If I believe 'what it says on the tin' it is supposed to be safe for 'animal and plant life'. That's why I picked this one at the time as opposed to some others on the market. I hope there is nothing harmful to leach out from the hard dried in paint that's left, otherwise my veggies are affected too!

The other Dulux tin was fully cleaned on inside but again it was a water based paint with 'no volatiles', I didn't clean the outside of tin!

You're right though if any one was doing this they should try and get the pots clean of any contents before re-use.

If any one out there has any articles on chemicals being absorbed by plants from their containers I would be very interested to read.

Digger Dan.

[Digger Dan]

I decided to err on the side of caution!



I don't know the risks of any paint residues being absorbed by the plants but I've scrubbed the pots anyway. A bit of steel wool and they're spotless (inside at least!).

Digger Dan