While much of our steep lot is shady, we have plenty of sunshine on our driveway. My husband, however, is steadfast in his refusal to rip up the concrete to put in a garden. Not to be dissuaded, I came up with an alternative plan to utilize the space: upside down tomatoes. You’ve seen those Topsy Turvy contraptions, right? I decided to create one of my own with a bucket I had on hand to see how well it works. It took about two hours, including paint drying time. If you’re not painting, you’re looking at 20 minutes or so.
Click through for my step-by-step photos if you’d like to give it a try, too.
Drill a hole in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket. I used a 1.5″ or so hole saw. I also opted to paint the bucket so it wasn’t so glaringly white.
Set the bucket up on blocks of some sort.
Cut a piece of scrap fabric roughly the size of the base of the bucket. Cut a slit to the center of the fabric. This will help hold the soil and tomato seedling in place until it gets rooted in.
Put tomato in hole, with the greens hanging below the bucket. My poor little seedling lost all of its surrounding soil. Pull the edges of the fabric slit together, snug around the stem.
Gently add soil around tomato roots.
Add soil until bucket is nearly full. I used a mixture of roughly 2 parts potting soil, 2 parts peat moss, and 1 part perlite for a lighter mix.
See the little planted tomato hanging there between the blocks?
Here’s the tomato bucket hanging from the outside of the carport.
The hardest part of having this hanging where it’s at will be remembering to water it. It’s not near my other plants – though maybe the trick is to add even more plants to this area! I’ll post an update in a month or two, so you can see how it’s doing. That should give those of you in cooler climates a chance to put one together in time for spring planting if you want to give it a try.
I like the idea of painting it too… looking forward to hearing more about this project.
My father has been doing the Topsy Turvy in buckets for year now. He used a styrofoam circle, with a slit cut in it, in the bottom of the bucket to help hold the tomatoe plants in and keep the soil from washing out. You dont want to use a foam that soaks up too much water or it can rot the plants off. Last year I also planted some with holes/plants in the side, seemed to work well and its nice not having to tie up the plants!
This is great. A couple of years ago our gardening space was limited so we hung a similar version (osh buckets) along the patio wall…we did tomatoes and zucchinis… and drilled a hole in the top and a hole on each side…it actually worked out really well…I’ll post a picture if I can find one…!
Fun! I have two cloth-in-a-wire-frame hangars from Gardener’s Supply and I’ve used them over and over again. Hopefully you have enough soil in the bucket to handle the lack of moisture compared to right-side-up planters and just using the ground. You will need to keep an eagle eye on the moisture — as you know, tomatoes require a LOT of water during fruiting.
I was very successful with them in NebrasAlso, those in colder climates can consider painting their buckets flat black to keep them warmer. Yes, dark colors will indeed make a difference. There’s even this particular shade of red that a university (Cornell, I think?) determined is of the proper wavelength to help out tomato (and related plant) growth.
@vollmerdp Good to know you were successful with them! I dislike growing in containers because keeping them moist can be so difficult, but we’re so limited on growing space, I figure it’s worth a try. We’ve got pretty high humidity, so maybe that will make it slightly less forgiving??
You are brilliant! My kid has been wanting me to get a topsy turvy, mostly because she likes to buy things off TV. The pro for me is that I need to keep plants close to the house to dissuade deer from doing them in. I CAN’T WAIT TO TRY THIS.
You are brilliant! My kid has been wanting me to get a topsy turvy, mostly because she likes to buy things off TV. The pro for me is that I need to keep plants close to the house to dissuade deer from doing them in. I CAN’T WAIT TO TRY THIS.
Great idea! I haven’t bought one of these but have always wanted to try it!
Clever idea! Although it’s too cold here right now, I look forward to being able to grow some nice juicy tomatoes when the warm weather returns. Keep us posted on your success!
I can’t wait for you to try it, either!
This was really interesting to see how you put it all together!
This was really interesting to see how you put it all together!
These always look so cute – and practical. Thanks for the primer.
I might have to try this come spring. Great how-to post.
My sister did this last summer and her “upside down” tomatoes outproduced her others by quite a lot! I’m determined to try it myself, although I haven’t figured out a good place to do it yet. Thanks for the inspiration!
I want to try this too. It’s too cold here right now for tomatoes but I’d love grow fresh tomatoes this summer.
We have problems with our growing space as well. I’ve made my own upside down tomato pots for the past two years and they’ve done better than the ones on in the deck pots!
Love this idea. We have very little room for growing anything. And this step-by-step makes it easy to follow. Having fresh tomatoes would be delightful
[...] posted about my upside-down tomato experiment about a month and a half ago. This is what it looks like today. The first blossoms have [...]
Brilliant!! I also have wanted to do the TV version, but refused to dish out that much $$ for something I’m sure cost $3.00 at best to create..I knew there had to be a DIY version….YOU ARE GENIUS and provided great instructions. Thank you in advance.
Erika, I’m the queen of figuring out how to do something with what I have on hand! LOL It doesn’t *always turn out, but sometimes it does. I’m glad you think this will work for you!
[...] In spite of the weather we’re harvesting enough tomatoes for fresh eating from both in-ground plants and hanging tomatoes. [...]