My husband built this frame work to hold three tomato plants. The grass in the top of the buckets helps hold the moisture in. He cuts it with a scissors. The chains on each side allows him to raise the buckets as needed.
Simply popping the lids on the buckets will also stop evaporation and keep moisture in. I plant another tomato or a green pepper plant on the top of mine -- doesn't stop the evaporation process, but gives me extra food in otherwise unused space. This year, I have cantaloupes growing under my buckets, so in effect, I am gardening on three levels. By-the-way, the buckets do not have to be filled with dirt. You can add more as the plant roots fill the container. It is extremely important to thoroughly water the plants before they dry out, or at least every other day, and to fertilize them too.
They were only 2 topsy turvy planters left to buy at the store. After purchasing them, I had an idea, plus I wanted to plant more than 2 tommy toe tomato plants.
I recycled my milk jugs by planting tomatoes in them upside down, and fed them used coffee grounds, they are thriving!
Use hanging baskets found in yard sales and in local Dollar Tree stores as the base for your own attractive hanging plants. I added grass clippings along the outside walls to hold in the soil or you can use moss.
Tomatoes grow very successfully in upside down planters and they are convenient for a patio or deck. This page is about making a homemade upside down tomato planter.
Take your terracotta pot and make the bottom hole larger by nipping it very very carefully with wire cutters. Drill three holes around the top rim of the pot.
I have a topsy-turvy plant that is about 18 to 20 inches long. It is having a problem with bugs. The leaves are getting eaten by a very small worm-like bug inside of the leaves. It seems healthy anyway but a lot of the leaves have this in them. What can I do? Please help. Thank you.
This sounds like leaf borers. This is a worm that lives inside the two layers of leave surfaces, front & back. You can spray for them, but I don't care for insecticides, unless there is no other option.
I started a hanging tomato garden, and not having anything to hang them from, I built a trellis using the 1 1/2 inch and the 1/2 inch PVC piping. The milk jugs I used for my garden fit perfectly on the 1/2 PVC piping, and will sit on top of the 1 1/2 inch PVC piping rectangle trellis I made!
I've seen commercials for the hanging baskets to grow upside down tomatoes. Do these really work and does anyone know how difficult they are to use? Thanks so much.
Hardiness Zone: 7b
By Tamra Benson from NC
I used 2 liter pop bottles two years ago, they worked great (just do a web search for upside down planters). Last year I got a good deal on the topsy turvey planters and they also work well. I put heavy hooks into the ceiling beams of my porch. I wanted them away from my garden as the year before I had blight in my tomatoes.
I live in a second floor apartment with a balcony and not a very big one at that. I decided to plant tomatoes but there isn't much room to put containers in such a small space, then I looked up. I have a spider plant and it hangs down from the ceiling, why can't tomatoes.