Are there any dos and don'ts and tips for using Topsy Turvey tomato planters? I am planning to plant green peppers, eggplant, paste tomatos, regular tomatos, and cherry tomatos in them.
Thank you.
Topsy Turvey Planter Questions
my experience with the Topsy Turvy Planter was not a good one. While its neat to free up ground space by hanging vegetables, I found that the soil dried out far too quickly here in our Florida sun, so was having to water twice as often to keep the plants alive. also found that being in that plastic/vinyl bag heated the roots far too much. But again, this is here in Central Florida.
The bag itself did not weather well and only lasted about a year. They may have improved them since I first purchased mine, so they might be more durable now. But since alot of tomatoes are vine type, it just cheaper and easier to grow them in regular hanging baskets in my humble opinion.
I had the exact same results here in Texas as cue_chik the one time I tried growing in one. I wasted my money once but never again.
A plastic bucket with a hole cut in the bottom will work better, the sides don't dry out. Use some water retention crystals in it, too, and mulch the top of the soil.
Note that wet soil is pretty heavy, be sure to have a strong hanger.
I was unimpressed as well. Plants normally grow towards the sun, and in my little experiment the vines never did as well in the containers. Look at all the ads for these planters, how the leaves face the ground--that means that they were inverted for the photo, they'd been growing right side up till they flipped it.
exactly! mine did the same. And if you grow peppers in them, they'll actually turn and grow up the outside of the bag, trying to reach the sun - defeating the whole purpose of growing them upside down.
Tried a couple of different upside down planters -- not worth the money, time, etc. Very disappointing yields.
I've been upside downing a tomato in a milk jug (with the bottom cut out) for several years just to see how visitors react to it. It is a good topic of conversation, but disappointing in its yield. Small tomatoes or dwarf plants like Tumbling Tom or Dwarf Gold Champion are best. That being said, I might try a dwarf in a hanging basket but I think I'll skip the downsideuppers this year.
PS (this same topic recurs frequently on the tomato forum)
I'm glad to know all this before I try a topsy-turvy. I had a bad experience with hanging plant bags, the soil inside soured. I havent used it again. Luciee