Latest Hydroponics News

 A "super breed" of slugs has arrived from Spain, but are they a threat to the UK's native slugs?

The wet weather has resulted in myriad problems for people around the country and now there is another - it has helped a "super breed" of slug from Spain flourish in the UK.

Numbers of the creature commonly known as the Spanish stealth slug, Arion flagellu, are growing fast in the UK - helped by the wet weather - and threatening native molluscs, say experts in the field.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18672728

OVERDRIVE 1L back in stock with BUD BLOOD Bloom Stimulator 40g.

Advanced Nutrients OVERDRIVE 1L back in stock and BUD BLOOD Bloom Stimulator!!!! These are back in stock at our London shop, Essex and Kent grow shops, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire hydroponic stores, Watford and St Albans Hertfordshire shops and our Chertsey Surrey Shop where these 2 products fly off the shelfs.

Advanced nutrients all currently out of stock B-52 Vitamin, Advanced nutrients Bud Factor X, Advanced nutrient Bud Ignitor, Advanced nutrients Grow Micro Bloom, Advanced nutrients Heavy Harvest, ADVANCED NUTRIENTS Jungle Juice™ , Advanced nutrients Grow Micro Bloom, Advanced nutrients Sensi Bloom Two-part, Sensi Grow Two-part, advanced nutrients Ultra-premium Connoisseur, Advanced nutrients Hobbyist Grower Bundle, Expert Grower Bundle, Professional Grower Bundle, Grand Master Grower Bundle, Advanced nutrients Big Bud Bloom Booster,  advanced nutrients CarboLoad, advanced nutrients Grandma Enggy’s F-1, Grandma Enggy’s H-2, Advanced nutrients Hammerhead, Advanced nutrients Iguana Juice, advanced nutrients Kushie Kush, Advanced nutrients Mother Earth Organic Super Tea, advanced nutrients Nirvana, No Shock, Organic B-1 Vitamin Booster, Advanced nutrients Overdrive, Piranha Beneficial Fungi, Revive Crop Protection, advance nutrients Rhino Skin, Sensi Cal Mg Grow & Bloom, Sensizym, advanced nutrients Tarantula Beneficial Bacteria, Advanced nutrients VooDoo Juice Root Booster, Advanced nutrients Wet Betty.

We at 3CH were devastated we missed visiting the fully functioning Lego greenhouse when it was on display at Covent Garden, London, but still loved hearing about it. Its nice to see hydroponics being brought into the public eye, especially when it combines our grown-up love of hydroponics and our childhood love of Lego (no offence to any adult Lego warriors out there).

For the London Design Festival 2011, British designer Sebastian Bergne constructed a greenhouse out of Lego in London’s Covent Garden. The pitched roof and walls of the hut were made entirely from transparent pieces of the toy brick, allowing it to function like a conventional greenhouse. Behind the plastic walls, vegetables and flowers emerged from a bed of brown Lego blocks.

Here’s some more information about the project from Lego:
________________________________________
LEGO ‘Greenhouse’ by Sebastian Bergne Comes to Covent Garden
Exhibiting in North Piazza, Covent Garden, from 15th to 25th September 2011
LEGO commissioned the award-winning designer, Sebastian Bergne, to create a public installation using the iconic bricks, as part of the London Design Festival 2011. Entitled the “LEGO Greenhouse”, this large-scale installation will be on display in the North Piazza, Covent Garden, a world-renowned cultural district, from 15th to 25th September 2011.

Since its first interlocking brick was launched in 1949, LEGO has become more popular than any other toy in history. LEGO, by its very nature, is all about design and creativity, stimulating imaginations and inspiring the builders of tomorrow. The interlocking principle with its tubes makes it unique and offers unlimited building possibilities. With about 3,900 different elements in the LEGO range, plus 58 different LEGO colours, all LEGO elements are fully compatible and six eight-studded LEGO bricks can be combined in 915 million different ways.

Choosing Covent Garden as the location for this installation was no accident as the area has previously hosted some of the most exciting cultural content in London. From partnerships with Tate Modern and Somerset House to exhibitions from the likes of Sam Taylor Wood and Banksy, the area is firmly on the design trail and has a long history with the London Design Festival.

Industrial designer, Sebastian Bergne, has run his own design studio in London for 20 years. Having generally designed consumer products including lighting and furniture, Bergne’s LEGO creation uses the iconic bricks to demonstrate the possibilities of LEGO in a public space. Inspiration has been drawn from Covent Garden’s design heritage and cultural history. Bergne has also looked to the design community in London itself, reflecting the overall Festival programme.

The LEGO Greenhouse is a functioning greenhouse built entirely from LEGO. The walls, the floors, even the earth is LEGO. The plants and vegetables growing inside are however, entirely real.

Standing in Covent Garden in front of the famous covered market, this temporary greenhouse seems out of place yet somehow fitting. Its pitched roof references reflect the architecture that surrounds it, while the plants inside bring nature back to this area once famous for its garden trade.
In daylight, the structure looks very much like an ordinary suburban greenhouse dropped into a new environment. Yet at night, it assumes another character entirely. It is transformed into a magical box, glowing and lit it seems, by the life of the plants it contains.

Though a temporary installation, the LEGO Greenhouse’s functionality hints at the possible potential of LEGO to bridge the gap between toy and useable construction for the real world.
Sebastian Bergne comments, “It’s been a pleasure to be involved with this project for LEGO and Covent Garden. What instinctively appealed to me, was that I would finally have the chance to live out a childhood dream and build something huge and usable out of LEGO.

“As with the majority of my work, I enjoy taking a material or process and pushing the boundary of what can be done with it. This time we have created an interesting juxtaposition of a natural environment growing in an almost digital, mass-produced LEGO structure, and it makes you look at LEGO in a new way.

“In my work, I love to make something special from the ordinary, and I hope that’s what has happened here. It’s an everyday function, made of a material we know, in an ordinary environment, but together they make something extraordinary and I think it is going to be quite magical.”
Bergne has worked closely with the LEGO Build and Technical Teams and Covent Garden to realise the project, with the final design built and installed by Duncan Titmarsh, the UK’s only LEGO Certified Professional.
 

Change in Opening Times - Great News for Early Birds!

Our St Albans, Dartford and Watford Hydroponics Grow Shops all have new opening times and are now open 9.30am to 5.30pm. This gives our customers the chance to stock up on our top quality, top value hydroponics products half an hour earlier and get growing sooner!

Our St Albans and Mottingham stores are also now open Sundays 11.00 am-3.00pm for all your emergency weekend hydroponics purchases. 

For detailed opening times for the new opening times please click on the shops below:

St Albans

Watford

Dartford

As you will be aware, we here at 3CH love our chillies, and the hotter the better. So we are always keen to hear from around the world about growers who share our passion for them.

We came across this news item featuring keen chilli grower Ed Currie (perfect name for a chilli grower!):

Man on a Mission

For growers in Brirain, the best environment for growing fiendishly hot chillies is created by using hydroponic growing techniques. So pop into a 3CH store today and get growing! We would love to hear from our customers about the hottest chillies they have managed to grow.