Maybe you’ve seen the commercials, maybe not and this is a new thing to you, but I’m curious as to what the teeming millions think of the Topsy Turvy Planter. It’s like this upside-down tomato plant thing, but it’s not limited to tomatoes. The site says you can grow cucumbers and peppers and herbs, etc. and I have to say, it has my interest.
I also stumbled on the Strawberry Bag (I know, kind of unfortunate name, but whatever), made by the same people, and again, I’m curious as to just how easy is this upside-down gardening thing?
Ironically, I recently canceled my cable tv subscription (so I will no longer see these commercials), but that now-free tv time can be used more constructively, and I thought of taking up some gardening. I’m smart enough to realize it can’t possibly be as easy as the commercials claim, but are they a complete waste of money or do they more or less do what they do? Thanks!
Planting on the bottom works. plants are always trying to live through less than ideal conditions.
The best way to plant is how the plant normally grows. Plant the plant on top as a first choice. Plant on the sides and bottom to do something different like plant sculptures or to declare look what plants can do if they have to. Sometimes you plant for space considerations, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t do better in a different situation.
Yeah, the topsy-turvy planter thing is a gimmick. You’ll probably get tomatoes, but not as many as if you planted in a pot. I used to work for the marketing firm for a major group of mail-order gardening companies, and though they sold these, no one who worked there (very serious gardeners all) actually used them.
Plants orient themselves with gravity. You can lay a tomato plant on it’s side and water it. The roots will turn down and the top will turn to grow up. When you put one in the upside down hanger the roots are not going to grow straight up into the pot. The tops will try to change direction and grow up and the roots will get enough nourishment to grow, but not well. I would not be surprised to find roots forcing through the bottom of the pot and out growing down. You are wasting growing time and energy while the plant tries to get into the correct orientation.
Tomatos put down fairly long roots into the soil. But they aren’t going to put roots up out the top of the pot.
There was another thread on here a week or so ago, I can’t find it now, where a person asked what the things growing on their upside-down tomato were. The branches were developing root buds growing ‘down’ toward the top of the plant seeking soil and nutrients. But it won’t find them there.
This is another thing that I’ve thought about: in my condo complex, I live in a townhouse with a small backyard. I know it gets a dose of direct sunlight, but I’m not sure just how much. Because of the lack of space, these devices piqued my interest as I don’t have any room for raised beds, nor am I allowed to dig up my back yard.
Due to these conditions, are there better options for an amateur gardening enthusiast? I’m not necessarily worried about devoting time to it all, as sans cable tv, I’ve got more time on my hands anyway. Thanks!
You can grow tomatoes in a big pot – I do so every year, since I only need one plant and one of the most reliably sunny places in my yard is a set of steps between the side yard and the back yard.
Look for a determinate variety (it will say on the little stick stuck in the pot). These plants will get to height X and stop growing – “indeterminate” varieties keep going (though you can control them by pinching them back).
Get a big – five gallon or more – pot, fill it with enriched potting soil, add a cage, stake, or frame to support the plant, and put it in the sunniest spot available to you. Check the soil daily to make sure the plant doesn’t dry out – yummy juicy tomatoes need to be watered well.
Just looking at my compost bag, I can tell there are lots of plants that will root & grow sideways wherever they can. Tomatoes strike me as the sort of ambitious vine that will take advantage of whatever it can grow in. I have a friend back east who grows tomatoes in hanging bags, and they produce very well. She doesn’t do the upside down thing though. Her tomatoes were getting all sorts of soil diseases in her garden, so isolating them in clean bags with fresh dirt was a good idea for her.
I don’t doubt you can grow some things upside down and it’s kinda cool looking but I wouldn’t want to hang something that heavy just anywhere. Tomato vines do get pretty unruly in the ground and in pots though, and the idea of the vines hanging neatly down seems cool.
If you do get the hanging bags, take pics later in the season and show us how well they really work!
My father grew a tomato plant in one last year and compared it with one in the garden in the yard. The one in the upside down planter won for production and also for minimal trouble with various pests.
Now, the amount of watering required was tuly amazing according to him but otherwise he was happy enough with it to get two more to try peppers in this year.
My father is the ur- raised-bed, organic vegetable gardener so we were both surprised that he liked them so well.
I live in an urban setting the the Netherlands (read, no dirt) so I have a vegetable/herb garden on my flat roof. It keeps me in veg most of the year, though by February it’s down to salad and spinach. I use several kinds of containers and have a couple square foot beds as well. Google Square Foot Gardening, it is very well suited to small spaces. You may have to get flexible about the shape of your square feet, is all. Some of mine are quite rectangular. And you don’t have to dig, you can just fill.
Cherry tomatoes in particular are very attractive in hanging baskets. So are sweet peas and adzuki beans. (I discovered the latter accidentally when my kid took some of the dried adzuki beans I had soaking in the kitchen and planted them in a hanging basket in the window. They grow very well, are sttractive in an unusual way, and people keep asking you what kind of plant that is.)
Yes, they will all grow root buds on the bottom parts of the stem and lower branches. And you can cover them up with soil if you want and they will root, in fact you should.
The root buds I was talking about were shown in a picture and are growing the wrong way, toward the top of the plant, the plant thinks that is the direction to find soil. Because the plant is Topsy Turvy.
I am not saying that you can’t grow tomatos this way, just that it is not efficient. Not a new wonderous way to grow tomatos. If all you have is a patio or other area and a hanging basket is the only way to grow them, go for it. You are still better off planting them in a pot or planter right side up.
My other concern with hanging tomato plants is that tomatos need support, either staking or some sort of basket or cage. I have seen the ads for the upside-down tomato and I wonder what a slight breeze is going to do when a plant laden with fruit starts twisting.
I don’t think the upside down basket things are very expensive so give it a shot. I am fortunate to have space for my raised tomato beds and this is looking to be a good year for them.
I have a friend who grew tomatoes in one last year and they were pretty good tomatoes. It seems to have held up well as he’s doing it again this year and last time I saw it, the three plants in it had a bunch of baby tomatoes, so sounds like it’d be worth a shot jimmycolorado.
I have two big pots with tomato plants that are doing really good too. Soon I shall have nummy, nummy tomatoes! Plus green tomatoes to fry! MMMMMMMM…
I also have three concrete planters with banana peppers, bell peppers and squash planted that are really doing well. It’s been a while since I grew any veggies so I’m having a good time watching the plants grow. It’s a great way to have a veggie garden if you don’t want to plow up part of a yard or don’t have room/space to do so or have raised beds. I could have raised beds but this is way less work and so far I’m loving the results.
The pots and planters are sitting around my pool. Hey, most people might plant flowers around their pool area. Me, I prefer veggies.
I have a thriving “Yellow Pear” tomato plant in a Topsy Turvy in the backyard - I need only turn my head to see it from here. It was an impulse purchase two months ago at the garden center (haven’t seen the TV commercials) and I figured it would be a geeky project for an afternoon. It was that, but I’ve been having fun tweaking it to get better results. In fact I expect to harvest the first fruit today.
Some of the objections raised above are sound, but I’ve found most of them very easy to deal with. So, go ahead and Ask The Doper Who’s Growing Tomatoes Upside Down In That Thing On TV.
I’m the other doper that ghardester is referring to who has a tomato plant in a topsy turvy tv thingie. I’m the one who posted the pic in the other thread asking about the weird looking roots.
Rootlets are still there but are, of course, not growing, since they’re exposed to the air. I’ve got bunches of tiny little tomatoes growing, though!
My topsy turvy tv thingie is hanging from a big beam, so there’s no problem with support. I picked it up in the first place because every time in the past that I have planted in a pot, no matter how big the pot or how much I watered them, the plants have dried out in our hot Alabama sun. This thing seems to hold the water a little longer.
Also, the squirrels would get the tomatoes before I could harvest them when I had a pot growing on the patio! So far I’ve seen nary a squirrel anywhere near this plant.
So far I’m happy with it.
And I’ll be happy to post more pics this afternoon if anyone wants to see them.
I wouldn’t say don’t use it. I’m all for trying to grow plants in every way you can. personally I would grow bagged plants with a drip irrigation system in place so you just have to turn on the water for a few minutes everyday, or better use a timer then you don’t have to be home.
I think right now the two biggest concerns I have is if the small backyard area I have to me gets enough sunlight, and if I have enough room to place an upside down planter with stand in a spot where it won’t be in the way of the random landscaper that comes by… randomly.
I’ve read that if the planter gets “six hours of sunlight” then you’re pretty set. What if it only gets half that? My backyard is very narrow due to a sheer rock wall behind the townhouse units. It’s very nice and peaceful, but really limits the amount of direct sunlight I get (which is good for a patio, probably not for a garden).
I have noticed my next-door neighbor has many plants on her backyard patio, but they’re all flowers. I’m guessing flowers may not need as much sunlight as a Topsy Turvy?
My WAG is that three hours of sunlight may suffice given the average temperature is warm enough. Perhaps a cool-weather variety like San Francisco Fog or Seattle’s Best of All would make it. A search on “Russian tomatoes” brings up heirloom varieties that set fruit in low temperatures. On the other hand ‘out of the sunlight’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘doesn’t get hot’, so cool-season types may be out. I guess it depends on how small a yield you’re willing to accept.
Clothilde, thanks for pointing me to your thread What are these THINGS growing on my tomatoes? (For those who haven’t read it, the answer is “They’re just root buds, they are perfectly normal, and they have nothing to do with growing the plant upside down.”)
Thanks!
