I'm growing 2 indeterminate tomatoes in upside-down, 5 gal buckets right now. They're doing great (just about to have a red fruit!!! Actually, a brownish one; it's an heirloom, other-than-red variety), though my guess is these plants would do better in the ground. I'm doing this as a bit of an experiment, and I like the oddity of it.

I use a homemade soil similar to Al's 5:1:1. As for PWT, I am able to stick my finger up into the planting hole, and I can actually feel when the soil is saturated at that lowest level in the container. When it starts to feel on the drier side, I water. Kinda cool. If nothing else, this whole exercise has led me to confirm that, in the past, I have severely overwatered my container plants.

Cheers!

Correction: Above, I said I'm growing in upside-down buckets. Not true. The buckets are right-side-up, and the plants are coming out of the bottom of the buckets, so it is the PLANT that is upside-down, not the bucket.

I know the reports are that this works but yeild is not as good as in the ground. I still don't understand why PTW isn't a problem. If the stem is wicking the PWT why isn't it causing problems for the stem and base of the plant?

Yeah, I too do not believe the yields will be as good as an in-ground planting (as I stated in my first reply), but yield is not my primary goal here.

The stem does not wick; there is inadequate surface area on the stem's outer surface to function as a wick, and any water that appears on the stem seems to evaporate quickly. The only water I see coming out of the pot is at the times I water. After that, the stem is dry, even though the soil just inside the planting hole feels very wet. This makes sense if you think about it; a short time after I water my well-draining soil, capillary forces in the media and gravitational pull equalize, and no more water drips from the container. This is the exact concept of the perched layer.

Now, there is one additional force at work here that may confound my ability to detect when water is no longer perched; the planing hole is rather large (about 2"), is exposed to dry air, and evaporation is taking place through the hole. When I stick my finger into the hole, it may be that any dryness I detect may not indeed indicate true dryness of the entire PWT, but only dryness due to evaporation at the hole. It may be that there is still perched water that is inaccessible to my finger.

However, I rely on the fast draining nature of my soil, and the vigor of the tomato plant, to compensate for any overwatering I may do.

. . . there still may be an eventual problem of disease at the point the stem comes out of the soil, though I've not seen any evidence of problems yet.

The potential for problems at the soil-stem interface seems an obvious possibility to me. Think about it; a plant in any well-draining soil will have the least saturated soil at the surface, against the stem, and the most saturated soil at the point water perches, at root level.

In my upside-down containers, the soil profile reverses; the most saturated soil is exactly at the soil-stem interface. I guess we'll see!

Sure is puzzling...please keep me posted on your observations.

Al or JAG, you guys out there? Any other thoughts on this topic?

Hello!

I am no Al or JaG, but two things come to mind when I see the upside down tomato plant:

1.) Roots grow towards gravity and water. If the water and gravity are toward the stem, and not away from the stem (as in a normally planted tomato), what will the root structure look like (an honest question, I have no idea.)?

2.) WRT the PWT, this seems to only be a problem when the plants are young, and water usage is low. I think Al mentioned this in one of his many posts that the PWT problem becomes less of a problem as the plant starts to use more and more water. This is something I have observed in my container grown veggies.

Just my 2 cents worth. Perhaps Al or JaG will have a better answer/comment on these oddities.

JJ

I've got a Sungold and Sweet 100 growing "upside down" in buckets as well. They started off slow but they're putting out lots of maters right now. No sign on fungus problems so far from the water runoff but we'll see what happens as the summer goes on. For someone with limited space like me, the upside down containers are awesome. I'm going to try some peppers as well.

Everyone,

Please keep me posted on your success...I'd like to see pictures too if possible. I'm in a region of Florida that gets NO frost so I'm done for the summer...humidity combined with night temps. > 75 = powdery mildew and uncontrollable bugs. Based on your success I may try a few of these in the Fall.

Tom

one thing i don't understand about the upside-down tomato thing, is why not just grow them out of the TOP of a hanging container? what advantage is there to having them comming out the bottom? why not just let them hang over the edges of the hanging basket?

A few thoughts on this novel growing method:

- the plant doesn't grow downward, it grows upward. In the case of heavy plants like a tomato, particularly one setting fruit, gravity forces it downward.

- roots do not respond to gravity exclusively, in fact I am not sure it is known if they respond to gravity at all. There are sources saying they do, but they do not explain (that I have seen) the mechanism by which plant roots 'feel' gravity. They respond to moisture, nutrients and oxygen, the stuff they need. As such I would expect the roots to grow throughout the container upside down or not.

- PWT and fungal problems: Probably not as large an issue as one might think. The problem with a PWT is a low oxygen/high moisture environment not conducive to healthy roots. Inverting the container would seem to result in the hostile portion being near the stem of the plant rather than near the growing portion of the roots. Fungal problems seem to be more an issue of humidity/temp than brief wet periods such as drainage water. Wet leaves from irrigation can certainly tip the balance or exacerbate an existing infection, but I suspect it isn't a huge factor in most cases in terms of contracting a pathogen.

These are just my thoughts, no expertise to be found here with this growing method. Seems like a fun thing to do for those so inclined.

An update on my upside down tomatoes . . .

One plant just about died the other day, from an unexpected problem. It seems that either I planted the main stem a little too close to the cut-edge of the hole in the bucket, or the plant shifted over time. Anyway, a series of days with very high winds caused the plants to sway a bunch, and the swaying allowed contact of the main stem with the cut-edge of the hole; this resulted in deep abrason and partial severing of the trunk.

I unpotted it (roots were spread throughout the bucket, concentrated in the lowest point), took some cuttings and repotted the main plant with a little stem and some leaves remaining, in the conventional manner (that is, right-side-up).

The other one is doing fine so far; tomatoes just about to ripen!

Hello redneck!

Sorry to hear about your plant. Thanks for the observation on the root structure.

From what I have read, plants respond to all kinds of tropisms. Two of these tropisms is Gravitropism (response to gravity) and Hydrotropism (response to water). According to this last link, the response to gravity is stronger than the response to water.

A few years back, I was working on a way to keep a container watered. It was a device that was buried at the bottom of the container, and it had some felt that would wick water from a reservoir. This felt was ~1-1/2 inch by 1 inch. All was working well, until about mid growing season, when the tomatoes started to show sighs of insufficient water. At risk of killing the plants, I dug down to where the felt was, and it was completely impregnated with roots. You could not even see the felt! The next year, I buried the device shallow in the container (the felt was only ~2 inches below the surface), and this time, there was very little root penetration, and also no watering problems.

So, my experience has shown gravitropism is stronger than hydrotropism. Your observation of the root being cluster towards the bottom of the container (base of the plant) may also show the same thing.

JJ

Great observations, keep them coming. I have a little space in the garden and will definitely give this a try in the fall.

Anyone grown anything other than tomatoes this way? Cukes? I've been trellising my Bush Champions, wonder if this would work....

Above, Silverrowan asked "why not just grow them out of the TOP of a hanging container?". That's a valid question. In my case, I guess there's not a real good answer; I have plenty of large containers, raised beds, open space, and 4 acres of irrigated ground that I could grow vegetables in. To be honest, I had seen others plant tomatoes upside-down, and I found it interesting and quirky; so I planted some just to play, to experiment, to be quirky, whatever.

Having said that, here is what some "upside-down" growers around the web say about WHY they plant upside-down (I will not vouch for the validity of any of these points):

"First, the air can circulate better so the plants have almost no disease problems. Second, the fruit doesnÂt rot as quickly as that on the ground. And finally, some critters that eat tomatoes have trouble getting to the ripening fruit."

"We also grow tomatoes in the ground, and, by comparison, the ones in the upside-down buckets seem to have a little better yield than the same varieties grown in the ground. I attribute it to the fact that the branches have less stress while growing, and have better air circulation. Of course, you have to grow smaller varieties or ones that are suited for container growing, or the yields will be less."

"First, they dont have near the problem with disease as tomatos growing on the ground. Also being hung off the ground tends to make it a lot more difficult for animals and bugs to get to the plants. Not to mention they dont need tilling or weeding!"

"Hanging upside down the weight is upside down as well so you donÂt need to stake them, and the fruit is better because it doesnÂt come in contact with the ground which can cause rotting. It also ripens faster because it is not shaded by other plants. Other benefits include no tilling or weeding, and some pests that eat tomatoes have trouble getting to the ripening fruit."

And on and on . . .

Oh, and JaG is correct; the plants actually grow UP. The plants are growing out of the bottom of the bucket, but the foliage continues to reach for the sky up the sides of the bucket. As tomatoes begin to mature, the weight of the fruit drags the plant down.