Mini Grow Bed from Lakeland – Product Review

Review by Michael Smith


Garland Mini Grow Bed
Lakeland Ref: 51193 Price: 22.91 GBP,
Lakeland Garden Catalog page 21

Stuck with a small garden but still want to grow an abundance of crops, or perhaps the soil in your area is poor and the seedlings always struggle?

Watch those plants wake up when you put them to bed, a Mini Grow Bed that is. The Garland Mini Grow Bed gives plants such as carrots, potatoes and onions the best start in life as the soil within the bed warms more quickly, giving earlier crops. The black surrounds also, I should think, contribute to this warming process.

The enclosed growing area protects, to some extent, against disease, pests and weeds, whilst offering excellent drainage and protection against soil erosion. However, the pesky birds and the slugs and snails will still try to do their best to get at your crops, no matter what. So you will have to think of protection such as netting and what have not. There Lakeland can help too, but that is a different story.

And not only will your vegetables be happier in a raised bet such as the Mini Grow Bed; the raised growing surface also makes it easier for you, giving easier access tot he plants and less bending for your back.

The Garland Mini Grow Beds are made from 100% recycled polypropylene and the bed is simple to assemble, requiring no tools.

Read more on Green (Living) Review

Patio Planters from Lakeland – Product Review

Review by Michael Smith


Haxnicks Patio Planters
Lakeland Ref: 50948 (3 Vegetable Planters)
Price: 14.95 GBP

Those planters are another product from Lakeland's new dedicated Garden Catalog that caught my attention when going through it after I received my press copy for review/preview.

You don't need a garden to “grow your own”...

Especially for small spaces, this collection of durable polyethylene sacks allows you to have your own vegetable plot on a patio, in a yard, or right next to the back door. Easy to manage and to maintain, they are great way to introduce children to growing vegetables too. And they might actually eat those vegetables if they have raised them themselves. With drainage holes at the bottom to avoid waterlogging, they have carry handles and can be reused year after year.

Those planters are, as I had guessed, and described thus in my review of the Garden Catalog, similar to the so-called builders' bags, being from about the same type of material. The only difference is that the material is not as heavy and it is also, in contrast to the builders' bags, additionally coated.

I have used builders' bags in my garden for container planting already and found them to work very well. The only drawback with the builders' one, despite the fact that they can ge had by the ton for free from building sites, is that they are rather big and once filled with soil can no longer be moved. They also take rather a great amount of compost and soil.

Read more on Green (Living) Review

Wellington & Barrow Tomato Fleece Hood Competition

Purchasers of Planto’s Tomato Fleece Hoods are invited to send in a photo of the biggest tomato grown using them. The winner will receive a Wellington and Barrow voucher to the value of £25. Entries needed by 1st August 2009.

Planto Tomato Fleece Hoods provide a micro climate which will give your tomatoes a head start this spring.


For more details and how to enter go to - www.wellingtonandbarrow.com

Grass Edger from Lakeland – Product Review

Review by Michael Smith

Grass Edger – Lakeland Ref 50965 – 21.96 GBP

This Grass Edger sold by Lakeland comes as a 2-part tube steel construction that is assembled by means of a bolt with a wing nut. The assembly cause no problems whatsoever as it was all too obvious and the device appears to be quite sturdy.

The circular cutter of the Grass Edger is not over sharp – but is probably intended to be in is way – and the cutter assembly too looks fairly robust as well. Obviously, as will all things, the proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating, meaning here that only over a more prolonged use would one be able to gauge how it performs and holds up to the rigors that some may inflict it the tool.

The operation of the Grass Edger is straight forward and it cuts the edge very well, even rather matted grass, as was the case with the overgrown edges at my garden areas, some about a quarter of an inch thick. I know, shame on me for letting it get that way.

Read more here

Lakeland Garden Catalog – Review

by Michael Smith

Recently I received the Garden Catalog from Lakeland, the well-known household goods company in the English Lake District, hence the name “Lakeland”.

While Lakeland have had in their catalogs in the past items and tools for the garden here and there this is the first dedicated Garden Catalog of Lakeland.

The range of tools and products is overwhelming and all look very good and impressive.

With gardening, especially as to growing your own food, being on the in crease, due to environmental green concerns and also the state of the economy, on the in crease this catalog is a great addition to Lakeland's range.

Amongst the items that very much have caught my attention in this catalog are the Patio Garden Range of durable polyethylene sacks on page 22 and 23 of the catalog and which, from the looks in the pages of he catalog are of the same or similar material as the builder's bags in which sand and such items are nowadays delivered, but smaller and specially designed with gardening in mind.

Read more here:

Bahco Bypass Loppers PG-20-E - Product Review

Review by Michael Smith

I must admit that I have had this pair of loppers in question for review now for the best part of a year but it does take a while, I believe, with tools to test them properly. That I have now done.

Bypass loppers of compact design to prune in difficult-to-reach places, available in two sizes. Oval steel tube handles with comfortable plastic grip and shock absorbing plastic buffers for added comfort in use. The smaller cutting head is ideal for pruning ornamental shrubs and rose bushes. Unlike for the professional range of loppers there are no spare parts available for this one.

The PG-20-E bypass loppers which I have had for review is the smaller of the two sizes and has a cutting capacity of a maximum of 30mm. This is, in my view, all academic though and depends on the hardness of the wood. I would not like to try it or any for that matter on dead prunus branches of that diameter, for instance. I have done dead branches of up to about 20mm with those loppers and I found it hard going. Not that the loppers would have broken, maybe. I just found it physically hard and would, in such cases, rather resort to a saw.

Those bypass loppers could be, and I do that at times, for they are very light and handy to carry, referred to as “secateurs on steroids”.

The specifications, so to speak are for the PG-20-E that of a cutting diameter 30 max, with a length of 440mm and a weight 665 grams. As I have said, they are very light.

Now if someone could design a carrying holster for it, of some sort, this would be an ideal too for any Countryside Ranger and such like to take out on a patrol, especially a foot patrol, in order to remove branches and such that may encroach on a footpath, a bridleway, or such.

This is, as all of Bahco's tools, a professional tool at a reasonable price and anyone in their right mind, especially a professional, I should think, would rather invest in quality tools than to buy cheap and find them broken in a few hours or days of use.

© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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Bulldog Ratchet Pruning Shears BD31303 – Product Review

20mm cutting diameter ratchet pruning shears

Review by Michael Smith

I have to say that this is the first of those kinds of pruning shears that I ever really have had an opportunity to use and review.

Other manufacturers and vendors for some reason have been more than reluctant, to say the least, to part with one of those for a proper and thorough product review and I leave the reader to draw his or her own conclusions as to the why and wherefore of this.

Bulldog's representatives on IOG Saltex 2008 were more than happy to supply me with one of those and so far I must say that I am quite impressed with this tool.

It took a little while for me to get the proper hang of it as to the best way of using it but once that had been mastered it is just a great piece of kit.

The maximum cutting size, in my opinion, should not be exceeded when cutting hardwoods, whether green or not, such as apply, plum, oak, etc. While it may work alright with slightly larger branch diameters, I must say that I would not recommend doing it.

Once the “trick” of properly using the ratchet is mastered this pair of pruners cuts through quite thick branches without any real effort. Small pruning is best done with the topmost tip of the pruners as it is then just the single snip. This is very good for dead heading of roses and also general small pruning rather than using the cutting jaws further down that then still employs the ratchet, making the cutting process a little slower.

On larger material the ratchet makes cutting virtually effortless and I recently used it to cut back a Willow (Salix) and in this instance cutting material with diameters of 35mm and such without any problems. It must be considered thought that green willow is a rather soft wood.

I also used it to prune some apple trees and in that case I restricted myself to about the maximum given diameter for this pair of pruners and there as well very little effort and strength was needed for the cutting.

From what I have seen so far as to the performance and reliability I can, I think, very much recommend this model of Bulldog's pruners without any hesitation.

Once again another piece of kit that is of fine quality at a very reasonable price.

© M Smith (Veshengro), October 2008
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