Upside down tomato planter

[Rhona]

Yesterday I was looking at the way my neighbour across the road is doing it - he's in his 60's and has been gardening for decades. He uses plastic plant pots, and saws holes in a plank for them to sit in so the bottoms are exposed. He then fills the pots with compost, plants underneath and sits the plank (3 to each plank) across a couple of wooden beams in his greenhouse.

His tomatoes are looking pretty good, and I'm tempted to try it.

[jackyspratty]

stick to normal pots u know its going to end in heartache,morrisons are doing 8 good size pots for £1

Thanks defcom, but all for giving them a go with my tumbling toms, as there is never enough room in a hanging basket. Plus get my glorists buckets free from Asdas you just need to ask the meet and greet person to direct you to the person in the florist section and hey presto free pots! You can usually get at least 20!

There's a video here on youTube hope it helps. clicky click

Thanks Bren! Your're a star! Thought it didnt make sense to put the seed in but thats what the ad said! Thankyou, looks quite simple, will post back a review at the end of thr season!

Yesterday I was looking at the way my neighbour across the road is doing it - he's in his 60's and has been gardening for decades. He uses plastic plant pots, and saws holes in a plank for them to sit in so the bottoms are exposed. He then fills the pots with compost, plants underneath and sits the plank (3 to each plank) across a couple of wooden beams in his greenhouse.

His tomatoes are looking pretty good, and I'm tempted to try it.

Sounds like a good idea Rhona. But what do you mean by plants underneath, cant quite visualise it! Do you mean he puts a small hole in the bottom of the pot for the plants to hang out of? Sort of like a hanging tomato shelf?

[jackyspratty]

Had a bit of a pallarver getting my toms in these, so did my friend and my mum! On the clip it shows the woman just popping the tom through the hole, but on ours the hole is surrounded by teeth that snare the root ball as you pull it through! So, either wra the root ball in a bag to pull it through, or maybe cut off the teeth?
Will let you know how they work out!

[greengas]

Could I grow chilli's this way? I was thinking of making planters with 5 litre dispenser bottles!

[Sanjo]

Sanjo, good luck with these and please let us know how they behave for you. I would be interested to buy some of these if you find them a success.

I will Bramble. I just hope we get enough sunshine to ripen them off!

Since this thread has been bumped I'll stick in my two penn'orth.
I too had an enormous problem poking the plant through so had to wrap it first. My rootball was far too big to even attempt doing it that way.
You can't "ease" the teeth out of the way as they are brittle and will break, and for those with painful hands - be warned it hurts!
The foam collar is also fragile and once the plant is finally (almost) where you want it, is likely to break as you spread it round the stem of the plant.
Because the actual tumbler is made of foldable/squashable material it naturally has no stability when you are trying to fill it with the plant in place.
If you have somewhere to hang it while you do it, and therefore can have the tom hanging down then it should be ok.
Be warned however - when full of compost this is VERY heavy and when lifting to fit onto a bracket it would be advisable to wear some form of hand protection because the thin wires dig deep. It's better as a two person job.
I have planted all three topsy turvey bags, however I only did two according to the instructions/video.
I got so fed up with trapped, painful fingers (and had more tom plants than I really had room for) that on the third topsy I cut 3 shapes in ascending order in the sides and poked the toms in and planted them up. I place a thickish piece of cardboard in the bottom first though to stop the compost falling out.
I also planted up a Thompson and Morgan freebie hanging bag at the same time.
All tomatoes are the same kind, were sown on the same day and were planted out within days of each other (about 10 days or so ago). They all went into a mixture of homemade compost and MPC.
The best of the lot, with tiny baby toms and more flower trusses set, are the three in the T & M bag.
The two hanging down toms have a few flowers on but don't look happy.
The three placed in the cut out shapes look a bit better.
Now, it could be that the bush variety (cherry falls) I chose is not suitable for a topsy but I feel that the plants got very stressed just trying to get them through the teeth. They have certainly not put on much growth since they went in, and what there is is curving back up - almost as if they are telling me they are upside down!!!!
I would be interested in everyone else's experience, it may just be me being cackhanded!!

[jackyspratty]

This was my experience, my mums experience and my lotty buddies experience too. Think we need to monitor the crop at the end to see. Not impressed so far! A near duplicate experience, ours were the topsy turvey ones