Growpot Query

Not been on this forum for years as I've not had a greenhouse or garden to plant stuff in. I now have a greenhouse and a timy patch in my garden, but most importantly I now have an allotment, so will hopefully be on here a lot more from now on.

I bought some of these the other day as I thought I'd give them a go for growing my tomatoes in growbags.

I have gravel trays and a gorw bag in each. I attached canes supports so that I can put in three bamboo canes in each grow bags, one for each tomato.

I followed the instructions on the growpot to the letter and was really disappointed - the serated edges are meant to easily cut through the plastic of the grow bag - you're meant to put on a little pressure and twist - after half an hour of using a great deal of pressure and a lot of twisting I didn't get any joy - so I had to get the scissors out and cut the circles out of the plastic.

I then pushed the growpots in, planted my tomato plants and then watered them in as instructed - you have to water in the outer water chamber and then leave them for two weeks to establlished roots. The water is meant to seep out of the water chamber slowly ensuring your plants always have the right amount of water.

Well - the water didn't seep slowly, it went really quickly and then all endedx up in the gravel trays - It's been a week now and the water is still in the gravel trays - what a waste of money! I have no means of getting the water out of the gravel trays unless I heft the grow bags out or drill a hole through the plastic.

So now I'm worried about damping off because the grow bags are surrounded by water.

Has anyone else use these growpot things and had any success with them - did you have the same problem? maybe I shouldn't have the growbags in gravel trays?

Any advice most welcome.

E