Plotting Something Special – AQUAbox At AutoPot R&D

There’s allotment going on in the AutoPot R&D department! All of a sudden our freshly reconditioned growing space is playing home to the kind of extensive showpiece setups more commonly associated with outdoor plots. Slap bang in the middle of our indoor arena are two in-earth irrigating classics of the AutoPot range that are currently enjoying a huge revival.

A seductive, sharply dressed, life expanding force of nature, capable of going anywhere in its sarcophagus, and always coming back for more, AQUAbox is very much the Dracula of the AutoPot range. These little princes of darkness (black plastic/you bury them) are the aforementioned devices stealing the show in the R&D at the moment. 

Far from drinking blood however, AQUAbox irrigates and feeds your raised beds, planters, or allotment plots responsively, power-free, and with no running water required – stick that in your pipe Bram Stoker! We’ve created indoor setups with both AQUAbox Straight and Spyder to demonstrate how anyone can enjoy the fruits and veg(s) of an allotment with no council waiting lists, back and forth, or in-earth cultivation required – how? Here’s how!

We’ve made up a narrow bed for Straight and a square bed for Spyder using readily available poly panels. These have been filled with Biobizz Light Mix and Mills Light Mix respectively. A garden tray placed underneath is quite sufficient to catch any run off or loose soil. Into the planters we’ve embedded the AQUAboxes. In the case of the AQUAbox Straight a capillary matting strip buried just below the surface stretches out lengthways on a slight downward incline from the AQUAbox itself. When in use the strip will carry water and nutrient solution, attracting and irrigating the roots of the plants in the bed. The capillary strips on the Spyder do likewise, only these radiate outwards in a 360 degree arc.

With the AQUAbox connected to your reservoir, the strips covered, the beds planted, and the grow media watered through, the setups are good to go. We recommend waiting a while for the plants to establish before switching on though. Given the inherent moisture in the grow media and the initial hand watering, it shouldn’t be necessary to switch on for a couple of weeks yet. 

If you’re using pre-mixed growing media that includes feed then it will usually provide your plants with sufficient nutrition for up to 8 weeks. Simply start adding liquid feed to your reservoir after the 6-8th week, following the manufacturers directions.

Six varieties of tomatoes, some herbs, and some spring onions are occupying the Straight bed. The tomatoes have been propagated from exquisite seeds given to us by Lance of Tomato Revolution and we’re very much looking forward to seeing the first of his plants in our care bear fruit (Care Bear fruit?!). Over in the Spyder bed we have three varieties of basil and a parsley continuing the AQUAbox renaissance. It’s great to see the Spyder and Straight back in action at HQ, but it’s not just us falling for its subterranean sorcery all over again.

Several of our favourite stores and growers are also circling back to the AQUAbox. Recently we’ve seen Hydrodaze of Newquay, Jurassic Hydroponics of Weymouth, and Medwyn’s of Anglesey, to name but a few, reach for Spyders and Straights to take command of their beds. They’ve triumphed with lettuces, cabbages, greens, onions, roots of all varieties, and potatoes – to RHS Gold Medal winning standard in the case of Medwyn!

Aside from labour-saving and holiday-enabling, the automatic watering provided by the AQUAboxes offers significant advantages over manual irrigation in terms of responsiveness and sustainability. Each area of the bed is only supplied with water according to the demands of the plants attached to ‘local’ capillary strips. This eradicates the need for guesswork in terms of plant requirements and removes the possibility of over- or under-watering. By irrigating so efficiently the AQUAboxes also do their bit for sustainability. 

Sub-surface irrigation can leave the top of the bed appearing dry (a frequent worry for first time AQUAbox users) but in fact helps contribute further to efficiency by reducing water loss through evaporation.

As well as being re-boxed in attractive, easy to grasp packaging, AQUAboxes have now had their kit lists tweaked to include a click fit version of the 16-9mm / 1/2-3/8” inline filter. This little extra, together with bright and bouncy revamped instructions, makes connection to your water butt or reservoir easier than ever. 

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