Hang your tomatoes upside-down

Hanging your vegetable plants, especially tomato plants, upside-down has a few advantages over standard pots:

• No need for staking and cages, big issue with tomato plants.
• Does not need floor space. Planters can be hung from a balcony, deck, window etc. In an urban environment where space is limited, you can get more plants in less space.
• Depending on your built environment and surroundings, you can get more sunlight by hanging planters high comparing to pots on the ground/deck.
• No ground bourn pests and diseases. Pests did not figure it out yet, but if more people do it, evolution will kick in at some point :)
• Easy to move around and reorganize. Try moving around a 6 feet tomato plant with a cage, yikes.

I decided to go for it since I live in a city apartment with limited space and sun (buildings all around). I also noticed that plants that are hanging in certain spots do better than plants in pots, probably due to a couple of hours more sunlight.

You can either make a planter yourself, or buy one. I looked at both options, and have a comparison below. Before that, lets start with doing it yourself, always a favorite on sustainlane.

How to make an upside-down tomato planter

An upside down planter is basically a hanging pot or bucket, with a hole at the bottom. You will not start from seeds, you will need a small plant that is ready to be planted in a big pot, 4 to 8 inches tall.

1. Get a bucket or a plastic hanging pot, 3-5 gallons, depending on application.
2. For a bucket, drill a few draining holes at the corners of the bottom. Pots will normally have holes.
3. Drill a big hole in the center of the bottom, between 1 and 2 inches wide. Your plant will have to go through it, so make it the smallest hole that your plant can pass through. You can either drill or cut with a sharp knife.
4. Insert the plant into the hole. You can insert it either from the root side, or the stem side.
5. Cover the hole with something soft, so soil does not fall through.
   You can use Styrofoam, cleaning sponge, and I saw a guy online that used a coffee filter. You need a piece of foam that is larger than the hole. Cut a slit through the foam from one side all the way to the center. Slide the foam over the base of the stem though the slit, so the foam is centered around the stem. The foam should be inside the pot, touching the bottom. It will prevent soil from falling through the hole.
6. Fill with soil.
   Push the plant deep into the pot, so the roots are further away from the bottom as much as possible. Fill gently with soil, making sure ALL THE TIME that the root system is exactly in the center and far from the bottom. DO NOT DUMP SOIL DIRECTLY FROM THE BAG. Do it with a small tool little by little, repositioning the root after every few loads. If you just dump the soil in, the root is not going to be in the middle, and in the worse case the stem will break.
7. Hang.
8. Fill the planter with water. Pour a gallon to completely soak it. Don’t worry about too much water, it just drains through the bottom.

A few tips:

• After watering, the thing gets very heavy. It can easily be over 30 pounds. For a big vegetable plant, like tomatoes, you need a very strong anchor point.
• Be very careful in adding soil. Constantly preposition the root, and be careful not to break the stem.
• You can also plant something on top. Since tomato plants are resource hungry, I would leave them alone. I also don’t know if beneficial plants actually benefit each other on both sides of gravity.

Buying an of-the-shelf upside down planter

I ran out of hanging pots, so I went to Home Depot. I found those few options:

1. Plastic hanging pot, $6
2. Plastic bucket, $3
3. Upside down planter, $10

I hang it next to a wall or rail, so I need short overall vertical size from the anchor point to the bottom, and not too wide.

The pots were wide and shallow, and had very long hanging chains, so they were disqualified immediately. The bucket was the cheapest option, but not perfect in terms of fit. So I went with the planter. If the planer was more expensive, or if I needed a lot of them, I would have gone with the bucket. But the difference in price was small enough to get something that is a perfect fit.

The Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter Review

This planter is marketed on late night TV with the typical BS, like a grandma that feeds the whole neighborhood with one tomato plant and people that never buy vegetables again. The product photos look like someone painted the tomatoes over the plant. When you look at it you think immediately about long nose spider vacuum sucker pro and magic hot dog slicers, plastic junk.

It does sound like BS, so I bought it only after I inspected the real product in the store.

Comparing to a DIY bucket/pot, this planter has a few advantages:

1. Narrow, so the hanging point does not need to be far from the wall. Notice that the further the hanging point is from the wall, the stronger it needs to be anchored to the wall.
2. Very short hanging chains, contribute to a relatively short size from top to bottom, even though the planter is actually narrow. This is not an advantage over the bucket, which is shorter and generally has good shape for this application.
3. Top swivel, so you can turn your planter around. Not a big deal, just nice.
4. Lid with watering hole. Again nothing you cannot do yourself. A lid for the bucket is one more dollar.
5. A bucket is hanging from two points (the handles connections), which creates strain on the sides. Add UV and constant weight, and its possible to develop cracks. This can be solved by using a lid that will resist the bending force on the side. You probably think "what the heck is he talking about" :) once an engineer, always an engineer.

The planter

"The planter is not a solid plastic bucket, it is a soft bag with hard top and bottom frames. The frames are plastic metal combo. On top, a metal ring and a plastic disk to handle bending forces on the metal (see point 5 above regarding the bucket). I believe the reason they went with this design, is that the soft structure can be packed in a small box, reducing shipping costs. All parts are supplied, with a simple installation guide and nice vegetable gardening tips, which the average gardener probably knows already.

This is a cheap made in china product, but it is made right. You get your $10 worth. It even comes with an anchor hook that looks solid. The bag looks OK and has internal reinforcement straps that transfer the load from the bottom to the top chains.

Its very easy to install and use. All parts are there, and in 5 minutes you have a hanging tomato plant. Very functional design, with a top cover that contains a watering hole, short chains that are already connected to a top swivel with a hanging loop, etc. To get the work done, I hanged it from a laundry rack, so I could work on it at eye level where the plant at the bottom is in the air, safe from harms way.

In short, does what it says on the (very nice) box. The box probably turns off a few people, since it does look like a giant colorful commercial, showing the products origin in late night TV. It also makes a nice present for a weekend gardener.

There is another planter that I found recently, which has more volume for soil and a built in 1 gallon water drip tank ($20)

http://www.gardeners.com/Gardeners-Revolution-Planter/37-850,default,pd.html

If you have a bucket or a hanging pot, go ahead and drill the hole. It will save some $ and do the same job. If you are going to buy something, the Home Depot buckets are dirt cheap, and with 10 minutes work will save you a few dollars.

After a Few Months

The plant grows extremely well. It has outgrown the potted plants which are much older. I am more than happy with this planter. It is not care free. The plant is little disoriented when it is up side down, and does not always grow in the best direction. This is still a lot less work than staking and cages.

And the best thing about this planter so far is:

Water Use

Less than anything I've ever used. This planter has:

• Long and narrow structure, means less surface area for evaporation.
• Covered top, protects the soil from direct sunlight.

Result: This is the biggest plant I have and it consumes less water than all the others. This may be the biggest benefit of this planter.

I recommend.