Wicking beds from Broccolli boxes

About a month ago I (finally) got around to making a couple of wicking beds from Broccoli boxes I picked up for free at one of the local supermarkets. The idea of a wicking bed is that water is stored at the bottom and is "wicked" upwards to where the plants need it in the root zone. I have seen on a few peoples blogs that the idea is begining to take off, in these times where we all struggle to keep water up to our plants (for more info have a look on this site)

I thought I would try two different methods and see which worked better.

The first I filled the bottom with some gravel I had around the place, then placed a 2L milk container upside down, in the corner, with the bottom cut out (for watering) and the lid off and then filled the rest of the box with potting mix. Into this I planted a coupe lof Everlasting Lettuce seedlings, a Spaghetti Squash seedling and a couple of Purple Pak Choy seedlings

The second I decided not to use the gravel but instead I used a juice container cut in half length ways, and placed along the bottom to create a tunnel to hold water, then I filled the box with potting mix and planted it out the same as the first one. I gave them the same amount of water each and left them to do their thing.


Almost a month later and the one on the left (no gravel) has definitely performed better than the one on the right (with gravel). In both of them the Pak Choy has not survived (on the right of the boxes), and in the gravel one the squash died, but the lettuces seem to like both.

Just look at them now, I was considering replacing the seedlings that died with some more of the Everlasting Lettuce since that seems to be going really well in both, or maybe something like some rocket. It really is nice to see things so green and lush without having to constantly water.