Upside Down Tomato Plants: DIY

Farmers discovered years ago that tomatoes can grow really well if you plant them upside down. Today, there are plenty of good upside down planters on the market. The only problem is that they can be expensive. But, you can easily make an upside down tomato planter yourself.

First, you need a good sturdy bucket for each plant. You will need to grow your plant to at least four inches tall before you begin. We’ve used everything from one gallon ice cream buckets to five gallon paint buckets. The main thing your bucket needs is a good handle. A lid is also preferable, but not really necessary.

Cut a hole in the bottom of the bucket. Make it only an inch or two across, you don’t want your plant to fall out. Put some potting soil in the bucket, catching what falls out for future use. Gently position your tomato plant in the hole so that the roots are inside the bucket and the stems are sticking out of the bottom. You may enlist some help for this step unless you already have somewhere to hang your bucket where you can still reach inside.

Gently fill dirt little by little around the roots. Do not pack it tight. Wrap a strip of newspaper around the stem so that it is half-way in the dirt and half-way out. This keeps bugs that may climb around the bucket from climbing down the tomato plant. This trick also works for tomatoes planted in the ground. Finish filling the bucket with dirt because upside down tomato plants can grow a lot of roots.

Because gravity is pulling down on the plant, it will grow thick sturdy stalks that may curve up into the air. They will sprout more stems per stalk than a normal tomato plant and support a lot more weight. Hang your bucket somewhere that gets a lot of sun. If you use a lid, cut a hole in it big enough for rain to enter. Your upside down tomato plant will not need as much water as one planted in the ground because it’s soil will not drain much.

Tomatoes never touch the ground and can get sun all the way around. This helps them to ripen sooner and more evenly than traditional plants. The gravity and additional circulation also helps the tomato plant produce more tomatoes and bigger tomatoes.

You want to let the soil in your tomato plant become almost dry before you water it again. Tomatoes prefer an arid climate and too much water will produce flavorless, light-colored, grainy-fleshed tomatoes like you find in many super markets. Bark-like scars on your tomatoes are a sign that you haven’t over-watered and your tomatoes can hold up to five times the nutrients of over-watered tomatoes. Use a hose reel to keep your hose stored for the long times between watering. With your tomatoes away from bugs and pests, you could have the harvest of a lifetime this summer!

About the Author: Stacy Pessoney is an award winning author and writer of web content for many different web sites. She is well versed in many different areas, including gardening, hose reel, lawn care and landscaping.

Building a Box Garden

It’s that time of year again! If you’re like me, you are excited to plant your vegetable garden. The box garden is a popular option because it makes the most of a small space. Plus you don’t have to till up the ground or do any really hard work.

Building the box is simple and cheap. Of course, you could go all out and use expensive wood or build a structure capable of withstanding a flood, but it really is not necessary for the classic box garden. Box gardens are very popular in Japan because they are nice, neat and create a lot of vegetables in a small space.

The secret is that the dirt inside never gets stepped on. It’s nice and loose, allowing roots to penetrate really deep. Plants grow stronger, bigger and produce more vegetables when they are planted up off of the ground like this. You can also place plants closer together and squeeze more in.

To construct your own for practically nothing, buy landscaping timbers. They top out at about three dollars each. You’ll need to stack them two high. The box needs to be a rectangle no more than four feet across. This will allow you to reach the center without ever stepping on the dirt. Make it as long as you would like. I use four 8’ landscaping timbers for each side and two 4’ timbers for each end. I hammer stakes in the ground along the outside to keep the walls from toppling over.

Once your box is in place, fill it up with bags of soil. Check the bag to see how many you need. A normal small bag will fill one cubic foot of space, so for a 16’ long box like mine, I used about 30 bags. You only need the dirt to be about eight inches deep for vegetables. You may want to work in some cow manure, peat moss or other types of soil. Once you have it filled, you can use it for many years. I recommend refreshing the soil yearly with peat moss and new dirt so that your garden doesn’t become low on nutrients.

Now you are ready to plant. Water the new garden thoroughly to see how much it is going to settle. You may decide to add more soil at this point. With a shovel or just your hands, dig out rows short-ways across the box. Each row should be four feet long. Plant your vegetables according to each plant’s directions. But remember, because you are using a box, you can plant closer together than the directions might say. For example, tomato plants normally need to be 18” apart. In a box garden, you can plant them as close as 9” apart. Plus you’ll enjoy more tomatoes from each plant.

You will want to keep your garden hose reel close by for frequent watering because a box garden can dry out more quickly than one located on the ground. Don’t water tomatoes too much or they will lose precious vitamins and turn out whitish and grainy inside. Just a little tip from one tomato fan to another!

About the Author: Stacy Pessoney is an award winning author and writer of web content for many different web sites. She is well versed in many different areas, including gardening, hose reel, lawn care and landscaping.