News and Views

Cleaning the inside of your pyramid couldn't be simpler! Mrs Franks of Malvern demonstrates . . . Need somewhere to store your door? Geoff and Eleanor Davies have the answer. Tony Crofts of Swanwick, Derbyshire gets his seeds off to a romping start, Compost containers and tube heater available. Mr J F Gill of Bramhall (near Stockport) has come up with a way to make a simple, elegant and highly effective shade. Wynning Ways – give your pyramid base to be proud of. Cultivating a brood of wrens! Reg White, Blackpool Micro on the Thames "Best find at Chelsea" Rampant tomato in Midlothian!

If you're looking for somewhere to store your door while you're hard at work here's a tip from Geoff & Eleanor Davies. They simply modified their glass-pack crate, inverted it - and Presto!

Compost Containers and tube heater now available for GrowMate Standard & Mini.

	Compost Containers
	With compost containers you can;-
	Harden off your plants quickly and easily by removing them from the pyramid during the day and returning them in the evening. Work at your plants on a bench at a comfortable height Use different composts for different plants. Control plants with invasive roots. Empty out all compost from the pyramid in minutes so that the entire structure can be relocated.

	Tube Heater
	Fits straight into the base of the Standard or Mini. Includes an adjustable thermostat. Heater rating: 180W Available from Simply Control: 01796 482128

xxxxixA Better Way to Shade

Much of the shading you see on small domestic greenhouses is put there in an effort to tame the soaring temperatures that result from poor ventilation. Generally, pyramids don't suffer from this problem, but temperatures may start to rise to a level that's uncomfortable for your plants if there is too little moisture available for evaporation. The golden rule is;- Always fill the base with moisture-absorbant compost. Always keep the compost moist. Geoff Hamilton used to demonstrate the ideal situation. You take a handful of compost and squeeze it firmly. If a dribble of water runs out of your fist you've got it right! Also bear in mind that the more plant material you have in a pyramid the more transpiration takes place – and the more stable the temperature remains in hot weather. But putting all the above points to one side, there still ARE situations where shading may be desirable. You may be raising shade-loving plants for instance – or your garden may be such a windless sunstrap in certain conditions that extra measures are called for. Here's where we can benefit from Mr Gill's ingenious solution;-

	This shade is made from 7 slightly over-sized triangles of shading material cut from a 1.2m wide roll. The panels are joined to each other using strimmer nylon and in the above picture the spool has been left hanging loose on the right-hand side to illustrate the principle. Here's a closer view of the jointing technique;-

	The plastic component at top is an electrical top-hat connector. Mr Gill says this is cosmetic, but I imagine it also helps prevent the ends of the nylon from pulling out. This next picture shows Mr Gill joining the sections together using some white tape as a temporary guide to keep the stitching straight;-

Of course the removable door is the perfect template for this job. You can slip it sideways on the material when you're marking or cutting it to increase the width of your triangles as required. Most home-made shades consist of 8 panels sewn together and slipped over the pyramid like a wigwam. Mr Gill has gone one better. He uses seven panels only and secures them on either side of the door using the glazing clips. His eighth panel is then neatly tailored to fit the door and is attached to it with Velcro. Voila!

Wynning Ways – give your pyramid a base to be proud of

We're always delighted to see what a real enthusiast can do with a pyramid. Ian Wynn clearly enjoys giving his creative juices the full run of the garden! Not content with using his GrowMate packaging materials to help construct a handsome stone base, he finished up with a couple of cold-frames on the side to help boost productivity. Ian says "I have installed a heater from Simply Control and this is really good, cost £105. Not the cheapest but very space saving and cheap to run. To visit Ian's picture gallery and read further details on his construction, click here.

xxxxxFirst ever brood of Wrens raised in a GrowMate

	We were delighted to receive the following letter and pictures from Mrs E Major on the 5th June 2002;-
	Dear Mr McIntyre, I thought you might be interested in seeing some photographs of my Growmate being used for a new purpose!! On returning from holiday at the end of April I was surprised to find pieces of dried moss and feathers among the many plants in my Growmate. On closer examination I was amazed to discover a wren putting the finishing touches to her nest on the hub topunder the vent. In order not to disturb her I watched until she had left the nest and hurriedly emptied my Growmate of its considerable contents, mostly into the house but some under fleece in the garden. I then removed the door panel, opened the Growmate to maximum ventilation and left her to it. I am delighted to say she successfully raised and fledged a brood giving us endless pleasure as we watched the process. I have now reclaimed my Growmate, given it a good wash and am in the process of using it again. I hope you enjoy the photos. Yours sincerely, Mrs E Major

xBlooms ablaze in Blackpool

	Reg White's mania for producing top-quality perlargoniums hasn't looked back since he bought a GrowMate pyramid at the Harrogate Spring Flower Show seven years ago.
	He says "I wanted a bright show of shrubs and flowers the year round, but I have to be very conscious of space" xxSpace wasn't a problem with a structure just 5'0" in diameter, and typically when he wrote to us earlier in the year every spare inch was in full-scale production. "At this very moment 870 plants are growing happily". xxReg is getting on in years and finds his passion for Pelargoniums can no longer be indulged by going to flower shows. "It's not easy walking round shows with plants" he says. xxSo he has ended up raising all his own, and in the process he has turned a hobby into a micro business and charity that keeps him busy all year round. Spring sees a crop of over 1,000 pelargoniums, Regals, Angels, Trailers, Scented, Fancy and Minis, all taken as cuttings and rooted in 3 - 4 weeks using an old car sump-heater that consumes typically a gallon of oil per month! xxLast year he extended his efforts to include herbs & shrubs - all plants for which there is a ready market on his doorstep. "Any money made is spent on pots, compost, gas for a larger greenhouse - and buying in new stock". xxAs a former patient at Blackpool's Victoria Hospital, Reg has also donated hundreds of plants in support of an MRI scanner appeal. xxAll photographs reproduced here were provide by Reg. "I know I'm not good at photography but I am enclosing a few which I hope will be of interest". xxIn a lifetime of gardening Reg says his GrowMate is the only tool that has more than paid for itself in its first season. We were delighted to hear Reg's account at first hand and are even more delighted to reproduce it here as an inspiration to other GrowMate users.

Growing up the Thames
Next time you head up to London, why not take your GrowMate with you, like Andrew Castell? He reckons it saves him enough in beansprouts and cress to pay his mooring fees. Plus it’s a mighty fine pigeon scarer!

Growmate in the NFU countryside magazine Journalist Janet Ryall visited the Chelsea Flower Show in May. In a subsequent article she wrote;- "The best 'find' of the day was the 'GrowMate'. My greenhouse was destroyed by the spring gales and I contemplated replacing it but immediately I saw the GrowMate I changed all my plans. It is quite revolutionary being a glass pyramid with good access to plants inside. An example of good research before marketing, it could do everything I wanted from a conventional house with the advantages; it is portable, requires no expensive base, has good easy ventilation and is not expensive!"

Rampant tomatos!
Writing from Dalkeith, Midlothion, Mrs Cheney says;- "My husband bought me one of your pyramids a couple of years ago. I carried out an experiment with my tomato plants this year. I grew them from seed in my ordinary greenhouse then I put half of them in the pyramid and left the other half where they were. You can see by the photos how well they did in the pyramid. - By the way, these are supposed to be the small bush variety but they went absolutely rampant and I had to end up cutting them back".
Before…
	…And After! All things being equal, pyramids direct significantly more light into the growing area than conventional structures, and tomatos of course need as much light as they can get. …Which is not to say that all things were equal in this instance! Mrs Cheney's GrowMate might just be in a much sunnier spot than her greenhouse, but it's diminutive size means that you have far more choice about where you position it than is the case with much larger fixed structures.