I’ve proved this year how great Wicking Boxes are for me, I don’t need to go out in stifling heat and water the plants every day. We have so many tomatoes I’m giving them away but now I’m thinking of getting rid of the boxes I’ve made. It’s very disappointing after all the effort and the fact they work so well but during our recent heat wave I realized that if a fire did come here the polystyrene boxes would create an inferno of their own. I’ve thought about alternatives and decided after this season I’ll make our half wine barrels into wicking beds, they should be well insulated like the polystyrene without being so flammable. It’s a daunting prospect, having to remove the soil that’s in them and line the casks etc but I’ll see how I go. One at a time.
Musings of a Retiring Person 
They sound like such a great idea! Saving water is great advantage. But I still can’t get my head around wicking boxes, never mind getting a mental picture!
Thanks for commenting. After I first made them I posted my method here http://wp.me/p4d8rD-3G but there are lots of different ways of doing it. I liked the idea of polystyrene because it keeps the roots cool, they’re easy to move and I can sit it on an empty one so I don’t have to bend down so far.