Here’s an interesting home gardening idea—growing tomatoes upside down in a hanging planter!
This is a novel idea and fun to try, especially if you have limited space or if you just want to experiment with an unusual gardening tool that introduces a variation into your homegrown tomato project.
The basic planter is a canvas-like container into which you insert your tomato plant on the bottom side and add the soil into the top side.
The idea is that the sun is able to warm the soil (and thus the roots of the tomato plant) better than it can by the traditional method of setting the tomato plants directly into the garden soil.
We tried it and it works.
On the plus side, it is an unconventional and fun gardening project. You can place your hanging tomato plant where it is readily observable and note the progress of fruit development.
This is an entertaining and educational project for youngsters who may have never before seen the “real-time” production of table-ready tomatoes as they go from blooms to tiny green tomatoes and then to red, ripe, and ready to slice and eat homegrown goodness.
Also, locating the tomato planter on your deck or patio may help discourage poaching from birds, squirrels, or other uninvited varmints.
On the down side of the experiment, just remember than soil is heavy! Be sure you have a good sturdy and strong hanging apparatus onto which you will attach your tomato planter.
Also, you might want to insert your plant and some of the soil before you hang the planter, and then add the rest of the soil after your tomato planter is securely in place. If you fill the whole thing with soil before you mount it, it will be a heavy load to lift into place.
The tomatoes we grew from the upside down planter were a little on the small side.
However, several variables come into play here as in any gardening project.
The variety of tomato plant chosen will be a determining factor in the number and size of mature tomatoes you will harvest—as will the quality of the potting soil the plant grows in and the frequency and amount of water and fertilizer added to the soil.
And remember, there's only a limited amount of space and soil into which the tomato plant roots can spread and develop.
The amount of direct sunlight your tomato plant receives is also very important. Plenty of sunshine is necessary in order to produce healthy mature tomatoes.
The Topsy Turvy® company also markets strawberry planters and other frames and structures for holding their growing containers.
The upside down tomato planter is a fun gardening tool. Just be careful of the weight of the container when it is filled with soil and be sure the hanging planter is securely fastened in place.
