Airpot Trial

June 21st 2009 by Bazza

Friday 22/5/09 I was a bit suprised to find a large flat box waiting for me when I returned from shopping, luckily someone was here to sign for it. I could not imagine what it was as I did not recall ordering anything recently. I was even more suprised on opening the box to discover not one but three Airpots. First time I have ever had a pot/pots sent to me in a flatpack DIY. I got everything out of the box for examination and was amazed at the concept of the pots, I had never seen anything like them before and was quite impressed at the simplicity of them.

Saturday 23/5/09 After breakfast I again removed the contents of the box and laid them out in three seperate piles on the kitchen floor. Iread through the instructions which were easy to understand. I held the black length of material in front of me vertically to distinguish which side the cone shapes were on and laid it on the floor. Next I got a green circle and placed it three cones up with the middle cone of the circle pointing upwards inside. I then rolled the black material around it to overlap, checked there was a tight fit and screwed it together. The second one took me approximately thirty seconds to complete but for some strange reason the third one took me longer because I could not get a tight fit. Once the three were completed I gave them all a bit of a testing by pushing down on the green circle to make sure they did not colapse. A slight give but they all held. Although I was going to use a light peat based MP compost I was sure a heavier soil based one would not cause any problem. All in all I must say I was quite impressed.

I took the three pots up to my greenhouse and began to make up a mix of MP compost with added Perlite. I had previously planted up two tomato plants in to seperate terracotta pots, but on hearing I would be taking part in the trial removed one plant to put in to an Airpot. While waiting for the Airpots to arrive I replanted one tomato plant back in to a two litre pot.

I added about four inches of compost to the bottom of the Airpot and checked the hight to leave about one inch of space at the top of the pot. I firmed the mix down inserted the plant and backfilled. As with the terracotta pot I inserted a cane at the back. I noticed there was a height difference of about three inches between the two plants because of me having to remove one earlier.

A friend had given me a baby cucumber plant, no name attached, and I planted this in to No 2 Airpot in exactly the same way as the tomatos. The three pots were in line with a cane in the back. I ran some string from the greenhouse frame around each cane to the other end of the frame and back again and secured it to support the plants. The three plants are placed on a gravel floor in the greenhouse which helps with drainage from the pots and watered to increase humidity. I know how to grow cucumbers but have not done so before, so my only concern is about the seperate growing conditions required for for both types of plant. If there is any problem with the cucumber I will remove it. My greenhouse is only 6x6 and may become overwhelmed with all the expected growth spread etc, but will see how it goes. The cucumber could in fact be on the compact size.

I have some Chilli peppers and some Sweet peppers and decided to grow a Sweet pepper in to Airpot No 3. Planted exactly the same way as the other plants but without a cane being fixed. This pot was placed on top of the bench. I then took some photographs. The plants were then watered in.