Upsidedown Tomatoes
Mar 11th, 2008 by summer
It’s tomato planting time in Santa Monica! And I’m moving up in the world – the patio garden has gone vertical!
This weekend I drilled a couple holes in the top of my patio and experimented with hanging tomatoes.
The positives of flipped tomatoes for urban gardeners?
-More room!
-No need for staking
-Greater yield due to less stress on the branches
-Better air circulation
-And the biggest green plus – when I water my hanging tomato, the extra runneth over onto my pepper plant. Water reclamation, baby!
There are a couple of options for hanging tomatoes in smaller spaces – it can be done with a regular old bucket or this Topsy Turvy
It was easy enough, I drilled the hole to hang the planter from a hook (make sure this is secure, I tested my hook out by pulling as hard as could using my bodyweight and had the hub test it out too…. even an organic ruined tomato plant is not earth friendly!) As for the tomato, I cut a little X pattern in the bottom of the planter liner and weaved the tomato plant through. I added soil to the top and then hung that puppy up.
It’s been three days and so far so good! Will update on tomato progress.
UPDATE:
Success! All though quite odd looking, the upside down hanging tomatoes grew like champs! The plant in this pic is after about three weeks. Look how happy it is! While all of the plants were pretty successful, I had the most luck with the cherry and pear tomatoes.
Hey just stopping by to get my dose of green info. Always good stuff here! I am trying to compile a list of stuff I can do to reduce my carbon emissions. MTV had a commercial about it, and got me interested. I have been to http://www.earthlab.com and they have a ton of tips but I was mostly impressed by their page where they have their users send in tips: http://www.earthlab.com/life/tips.aspx Does anyone else know of other data bases that I can find these types of small things that lower my emissions? EPA or WWF maybe?
Thanks for all your info and drop me a link if you guys see anything worth my time.
Hey thanks for the great blog, I love the gardening tips. I don’t usually do much for Earth Day but with everyone going green these days, I thought I’d try to do my part.
I am trying to find easy, simple things I can do to help stop global warming (I don’t plan on buying a hybrid). Has anyone seen that http://www.EarthLab.com is promoting their Earth Day (month) challenge, with the goal to get 1 million people to take their carbon footprint test in April? I took the test, it was easy and only took me about 2 minutes and I am planning on lowering my score with some of their tips.
I am looking for more easy fun stuff to do. If you know of any other sites worth my time let me know.
[...] Now that my upsidedown tomatoes (read more here) have all been harvested, I was able to easily reuse the containers. I just stuck the new CBC [...]
[...] 2.Upsidedown Tomatoes [...]
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Then I took pieces of the dough, rolled it into little balls (about the size of… hmm… smaller than a ping pong ball), then rolled the dough balls in the lemon zest/ sugar mixture, put them on a parchment lined baking sheet, and pressed down to flat…
Great info and great pictures! Do you have any ideas for what to grow on top of your tomatoes? I want to grow some upside down tomatoes this coming spring, but am also thinking of planting some herbs on top. What do you think?
Great question Daniel. I would plant something that has a shallow root system for sure. Definitely not oregano! I’ve heard of people planting basil.
It also depends on what container you use… if I use my hanging baskets again, I’ll be heavily mulching the top so they don’t dry out as much.