they are 1.5m x 45cm x 45cm and cost…..you guessed it £1.

I was suprised at how sturdy they were for the money so im currently giving them a trial at warming the soil up before i plant my cabbage and broccoli seedlings in it.

They also had a some other cool stuff like 6m of irrigation hose for £1 … basically a little flat hose with lots of holes in that you put in your veg (or flower) beds and then when you want to water them just connect your hose too and turn on the tap.

I considered getting some and running it from my water butt, unfortuantley i couldnt figure out a way of traversing the path with the hose so decided against it.

anwyay here are a couple of pics of the poly tunnel….not particularly well erected but gives you a good idea of what its like.

I guess it will work for chillis to and as i am probably going to run out of space on the greenhouse floor i think ill try it with them…and when i do ill post more pictures on how to make one.

To make an upside down planter all you need is:

• 2 litre plastic drinks bottle
• Compost
• Stanley knife
• String
• Sharp needle or nail
• some fine gauze or fleece
• Tomato plant

To make the planter:

• Carefully cut the bottom off the bottle, and put 4 holes in the bottle near the cut you have just made, the holes need to be opposite each other so that it spreads the weight evenly.
• Cut a small hole in the fleece and feed the seedling thoughso it looks like its wearing a dress,
• Carefully feed your seedling into the bottle and through the hole,
• Make sure the fleece is lining the inside of the bottle and carefully top the bottle up with compost, you could add some stones before adding the compost if you want to help aid drainage, but i didn’t bother.
• Feed some string though each of the holes and tie it off at the top, this allows you to hang the planter.
• Water the plant and leave somewhere to grow.

If you dont want to see the plastic bottle you could always paint it or cover it in material!

Result:

(Note: the seedling may go droopy for a while as it will be getting used to its new surroundings)

I popped in yesterday to buy my spuds and onions for this year and they had a great array of ready to grow sets ranging from herbs and spices to chillis and peppers then to carrot and spud bags.

The things that caught my eye were the grow your own spuds in a bag and grow your own carrots in a bag, they looked like an ideal way to get started with growing veg, especially if you don’t have much space or have a patio.

They weren’t cheap at £8 each for the spuds and carrots packs but they did look really cool.

They also had some silver chilli pouches for £3 which you cut open, water and watch the chillis grow, ideal for windowsills or conservatories.

I resisted buying any of the kits as I’ve got plenty of pots and bags to grow stuff in but thought i’d give them a shout as I’m sure people will be interested.

There are loads of different ones on the market ranging from £8 up to £100′s, they come in all different shapes and sizes and with lots of different functions. I tend to prefer the simpler ones as they are cheap and there is less to go wrong with them.

I currently have 2 different propagators, A home made one that consists of a standard window sill greenhouse that was £2 and a heat mat i had left over from keeping reptiles. I’ve been using it for a couple of years with lots of success.

The second is an 8 watt 38cm B+Q heated propagator that ive not used yet but its much the same as my home made one.

I find the easiest way to get the seeds going is to seperate the propagator up using a seed tray filled with compost then place 1 seed in each section, this makes it easier to prick out the seedlings and transfer them to their next pot as the roots don’t tend to get tangled. If you are careful when pricking out you can also use the seed trays again.

Below are a couple of pics, one of my home made prop without its lid on, and the other is of the B+Q one. As you can see the heatmat doesn’t quite fit on the window sill (oops)

Also to prevent the chillis going leggy and leaning too much , i rotate the propagator reqularly.

Home made heated propagator