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Trying to grow Upside-Down Tomatoes

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WooferHound:
After seeing the "Topsy Turvy" Commercial too many times I decided to try and grow an upside-down tomato plant. I had a couple of tomato plants growing out of the compost pile so I used one of those since it was extra and this is an experiment. The ad says . . .
"As Topsy Turvy® hangs upside down, gravity pulls the water and nutrients directly from the root to the fruit, giving you a deliciously ripe tomatoes!  Plus, hanging in the air helps reduce ground fungus, harmful bacteria, cutworm damage, use of pesticides, digging & weeding and backbreaking work."
I did a little Googling and found out that it's easy to make your own upside-down tomato planter.



Basically you just cut a small hole in the bottom of a bucket.
Set the bucket up on something that will allow a plant to hang through the bottom.
Place some cloth in the bottom and cut a hole in it, this keeps the dirt from falling through.
Thread the leaves of a tomato plant through the hole/cloth being careful not to damage it.
Hold the rootball up inside and carefully add dirt to the top of the bucket
Fertilize and water it all, then hang it up on something strong because it will be heavy.
It's a fairly tricky process but not too bad.

The information I saw said Not to use plants that grow to be very large, the plant I'm growing is a Big Boy so I don't know what to expect it to do.  The plant tries to grow Up and the roots try to grow Down which is a contradiction in itself. People that have done this say that the upside-down plants don't grow as good and produce less fruit but this is only a test so I don't care.

The picture was taken today. It's been growing this way for 3 weeks.
I'll make updates here as things happen . . .

kensue49:
We did two plants last year.
They ended up being 5 foot long, the plant out of the bucket, and it worked very well.
The only problem is keeping it watered.
The container hanging in the sun and air gets warmer and you use more water.
It was worth a try on our part. The tomatoes were good and easy to pick.
We had less insect damage and did not use any pesticides.
Good Luck, you may need to raise the bucket. :D

tomw:
We tried that, Woof.

It worked but like kensue said they dry out fast.

It will need to be hung on a higher hook.

The second time around we added those water retention granules "Sure Moist" or something which are amazing things put a pinch of it in a glass oif water and it absorbs it all.  The watering issue was helped with those. One of those sesame seed size grains will swell up to grape size with retained water.

Just how we did it. We grow in the ground now due to the better yield and less effort of earth bound plants. But, then again, Amy has a 5,000 square foot, fenced main gardening area and another fenced area for larger crops that will have pigs in it this year to get ahead of the weeds that developed when neither of us could keep up with the space due to health issues.

Good luck with it!

Tom

WooferHound:
Yes Guys, I have 2 more hanging points, one is 2 feet higher and the other is 4 feet higher.I intend to build a rope sling to hold the bucket better and I will remove the metal hanger from the bucket.

So far, in it's 3 weeks of existence, it been holding water really good but I will keep watching closely for drying out. Ive seen it suggested to cut a small hole in the bucket lid and put it back on, then water the plant through the hole in the lid. This helps prevent the water from evaporating.

WooferHound:
I was seeing that I needed to quickly raise my plant to a higher position or it would be touching the ground soon. So I made a rope sling for it and got the ladder out and proceeded to try and move the heavy thing to a new hanging point that was 7 feet (2m) high. Well . . . my rope sling was not of the best design and the bucket and plant fell 7 feet to the ground breaking the plant into 3  unrecoverable pieces.

Determined to have a upside-down tomato plant this year ,  I immediately replanted another spare plant that was growing from old compost in the garden. The rope sling was modified and I got it all hung from the high position on the side of my greenhouse.



Here are some pictures from when I watered it all in and it's still dripping from that. I had made a few mistakes the first time I planted it and was able to correct for that this time around.



When I dug the roots of the old plant out of the dirt, I noticed that the roots are not growing down, but more to the sides horizontally and even growing up towards the top of the bucket?

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