Who Knew?
When we planted these upside down tomatoes (spring 2007), we had no
idea what a curiosity they would become. We had gotten the idea from various gardening
magazines and articles in the past, and we needed a sunny place to grow our tomatoes so we thought growing them upside down
in buckets would be fun and save our limited full sun space and give us room to plant other vegetables.
At first, after we had hung our buckets, we would see an occassional car slow down to try to figure out what we were doing.
Once it became obvious there was something growing out of the bottom of our planters more and more cars began slowing down
as they passed our house. Soon, alot of folks were stopping in the road and taking
pictures. This was a pretty dangerous activity when you realize they were stopping on a busy
main road at BridgeMill.
about the time the plants were setting fruit, the curiosity of my fellow gardeners
got the best of them and many came and knocked on our door to ask us about them. "I've
been watching these everytime I drive by and I had to come in and see for myself." was a common
comment or "I thought those looked like tomatoes-I've never seen anything like it". Others would
ask if they could take some pictures to show a doubting friend or relative who didn't believe there was such a thing.
We really appreciated the sense of community we were given by the interest from our
neighbors and those who just happened to drive by and took the time to stop in and visit. Mom
and I had many conversations with our new "farming" friends about gardening in general and, of course, tomatoes
in particular.
We also learned there is and underground counter-culture
in one of the area subdivisions who have to grow their vegetables on the sly due to neighborhood covenants. In the fall, many of our friends would stop in and sneakily open a bag to show me their contraband eggplants
and squash and, of course,.....Tomatoes!
To all of you who stopped to share and converse--Thanks,
we really enjoyed the time
If you think you might want to try growing your tomatoes upside down,
you might find these links useful
MINI FARM HOMESTEADGARDEN GRAPEVINE
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Click On Photos For Larger View
End Of May Growth Progress
I think We Liked
the overall visual effect
more than the tomatoes
themselves
Planning Ahead:
We put up the netting
to keep the vines from the ground
at the end of June.
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Results From Other
Georgian Upside Down Tomato Growers
I tried them last year as a result from seeing my neighbor doing it!
I thought he was crazy but he said Wal-Mart was selling them and he tried it.
He gave up on his with little or no results.
I had only 2 plants on my porch. They grew well and responded to Miracle Grow very well, only the 1st tomatoes from
them were only about the size of salad tomatoes. I started out watering them only once a week. This did not work
as the water dripped from containers and left them dry the next day and starved for water. As I went through the the
project, I started watering them daily and they responded well but only producing small tomatoes even with weekly Miracle
Grow. I heard from a buddy about the value of Grey Water.
Grey water is water left from bath water,laundry, dished shaving etc. ( no toilet water) So I started to feed them the left
over water from my bath and shaving. D...they grew larger tomatoes less bottom end rot etc. They
still did not produce very large tomatoes but they were plentyfull in the end
of the project and very tasty........ Alan M.
We Tried growing them upside down in one of those things you see on T.V. We didn't
have any luck. Our tomatoes grew upward anyway. They were easy to take care of. But we only got 1 immature tomatoe.
The plants never developed into big beautiful ones that were shown on T.V.
We did better in the ground with seedlings from the same batch of plants. It took alot of soil and the containers were
extremely heavy due to all the soil. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone. Let me know if you did better.
Thanks Theresa B.
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