Water-wicking tubs

I posted recently about the water-wicking tubs I’ve installed in Zone 1.

Here’s what I wrote:

I’m also trying some water-wicking tubs for the larger-growing tomatoes. These are large plastic pots, 45 cm in diameter and 40 cm deep. Because they have normal drainage holes in the bottom and I want them to be water-wicking pots, I’ve cut a circle of heavy-duty plastic and pushed it into the bottom of each tub so that it forms a water reservoir in the lower one-third of the tub. Excess water will simply flow over the top of the plastic and out the normal drainage holes. As with the wicking boxes, the tubs are filled with nice, rich compost and a few worms. I’m going to use them for the larger, indeterminate tomatoes—Black Russian, Grosse Lisse and Green Zebra—one plant to each tub. These will be trained onto a wire trellis behind the tub. There will probably be room for a couple of lettuces or maybe even a trailing cucumber in the front of the tub.

Here’s one of the tubs just after planting on October 10th, with 3 lettuces and a Grosse Lisse tomato:

Here it is at the end of October, 3 weeks later:

And here it is at the end of December. The lettuces have gone (having taken part in a variety of salads) and the tomato is well over a metre high:

That’s a grapevine at the left beside the post, and there are Purple King climbing beans twining up through the tomato. There’s now room in front for something else and I have a strawberry and a pot of chives ready to go. I reckon they’ll both fit!

 

This week’s harvest:

• Lebanese zucchini  350 gm
• Desiree potatoes  4493 gm
• Carrots  187 gm
• Butter Beans  93 gm
• Purple King climbing beans  34 gm
• Blue Lake beans  206 gm
• Plums  341 gm
• Romanesco zucchini  410 gm