Anyone grown any of these. i just got suckered into buying a couple at Home Debot. Any tricks to aking them work/grow?
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Anyone grown any of these. i just got suckered into buying a couple at Home Debot. Any tricks to aking them work/grow?
No experience, but I've been curious, and have a wife who thinks I should buy them, so be sure to let us know now they do.
I can tell you that you can't trick a Tomato plant into growing down like they show in some pictures. They turn and grow right back upward. So I don't really see the hype. I guess it might keep the weeds out.
Well I guess the weight of the tomatoes is supposed to keep it down. All the pictures show loads of them. I of course will probably get one tomato.
Here is what I found so far. All upside planters are not equal. The ones that were in my mail catalog were canvas and had zippers in the side. The pictures clearly showed that you could put a fairly large plant in the bag and then zip it up. They also came with a plastic reservoir on the top that drip fed water. They were $20 each.
The one I got in Home depot are plastic bags, have no reservoir and don't have a zipper on the side. They have a 4 inch hole in the bottom that you are supposed to insert the plant thru. Well maybe if you bought a plant in a 4in size are smaller. But I of course bought some nice plants in 6 in pots that were already about a foot tall. 6in pot does not go thru 4 in hole so I had to feed the plant from inside the bag thru the 4 in hole Really bruised up the plant and required removing some of the limbs.
Well $10 vs $20 bag. We shall see.
All I know is we had no luck with them. Once the tomatoes start growing on the plant, they want to try to turn it downward again and tug the wrong way on the limbs.Quote:
Well I guess the weight of the tomatoes is supposed to keep it down. All the pictures show loads of them. I of course will probably get one tomato.
A four inch hole. How are you supposed to keep the dirt in that thing???
It has a foam plug for the hole.
Ahhh, those big box stores think of everything.
Our upside down planters were homemade from plant pots. Other than the plants growing back up again and the darned thing not growing but a few tomatoes everything worked great :-)
I haven't tried this but my grandparents got a few of these this year. I'll have to keep you posted on if they actually produce anything or not. Their's were purchased at a big box store but they were already put together with the plant upside down and all so that may make a difference.
We bought a couple of these a couple years back from Home Depot and they all died as seedlings. Be careful of anything you need to start from seed in packages like this because you don't know how long they've been sitting in warehouse. Often the seeds are too old to grow properly.
We started ours from sets. At first, they look like their not going to make it. You have to work with them more than with plants in the ground, but eventually you get tomatoes. They are going to be smaller and for some reason they're saltier tasting. But for salads and sandwiches they're perfect. Keep them watered, almost daily if they're in the sun.
We found that they are never great producers. By the way, how did they get ALL of the tomatoes on the vines ripe at the same time in the pictures and on the tv commercials? There is some vodoo going on there. If there is some sacred secret to those things, I'd sure like to hear it.
I've wanted to try one of those upside down plants, more for the novelty than anything else. I'm wary though of their claims of the quantity and size of the tomatoes you get. In order for tomatos to produce to their best potential, don't they prefer a deep soil depth? And depending on the variety, some types have a root system that likes to spread out horizontally. I can't imagine the poor tomatos producing well when their roots are confined to grow all wrapped up.
Well mine are actualy making tomatoes, But , the silly birds found them so as soon as they turn pink they eat em. So I quit watering them.
I'll stick with the old planters I've been using. We had 2 big planters that looked too ugly for the flowers we put in them so I planted tomatoes instead. I had some cages laying around about 4' high. All the tomatoes we can eat and minimal care required. The upside down things are more of a gimmick than anything.