I always seem to have plants around which I do not want to throw away but which I do not have space to plant in the ground. Over the course of the season a few of these misfits were planted in Air-Pot containers, often with the intention of finding a permanent home later. But of course, some are still in pots months later. Fortunately the crocosmia bulbs and hydrangea plants are none the worse for it.

The hydrangeas had been heartlessly tossed on the midden.Now after a few months in an Air-Pot they are blooming marvellously and have been given pride of place on each side of the front door.

Spring onions in an Air-Pot propagation tray were left to mature, mainly because I had lots of other onions to eat. I thought I might plant them out to grow for seed production, however they are still in the tray, sturdy as a little grove of trees, apparently quite happy and about to flower in soil just 10 cm deep.

Of course successful growing in containers usually needs plentiful feeding, especially greedy crops like tomatoes. My allotment greenhouse plants were all fed exclusively on homemade comfrey feed, they thrived on this producing big heavy crops. Whereas plants in the garden greenhouse were all fed on a high quality organic feed which contains seaweed, but they are not as good as the comfrey fed plants at the allotment.

Comfrey feed is made by simply immersing a tub full of leaves in water for a few weeks, this stinky brew is then added to a can of water (about 1:5) and given to plants once or twice a week. Comfrey is easy to grow in out-of-the-way corners, borage and nettle leaves can also be thrown into the pot to steep.

Heading into Autumn the greenhouse crops continue to yield well with the drip fed tomatoes and chilies producing plenty of fruit.

A couple of baby corn plants in 14 litre Air-Pot containers have produced a modest harvest of dinky little cobs. Any kind of corn is a bit of a gamble this far north which is why I went for the quicker cropping baby corn and kept some under glass. Some plants were left outside; they have been a bit slower to develop but have still grown well.

I put three young plants in a 50 litre Air-Pot potato tower which I had handy, filling it two-thirds full of compost. After several weeks I topped it up. Maize plants throw out prop roots from the lower stem so I thought earthing-up around the stem would give the prop roots something to grow into. I did not realise the response of the plants would be to send out multiple stems. It seems earthing-up not only gave the aerial prop roots compost to grow into but also stimulated buds at the buried nodes to develop. So now the potato tower contains the original three stems, plus seven or eight subsidiary stems, It is quite a dramatic pot full, especially with the hairy tassel like flowers from all the embryonic corn cobs.

Air-Pot potato towers are designed to allow for earthing-up. The top portion does not have holes which means plants can be started with the container only partially filled. I am now wondering what other plants could benefit, I may try proper sweetcorn and black currants.