Upside Down Tomato Planter - Upside Down Tomato Garden Review

You may have seen the ads for the Upside Down Tomato Planter and wondered what the deal was. Is this a real way to grow tomatoes? We thought we would take a look at this product to see if it was worth the investment. How does it differ from a regular hanging tomato planter?

There is actually more than one type of these planters available. There is the Topsy Turvy planter, which is really for just one plant. Then there is the Upside Down Tomato Garden, which holds more than up to 4 upside down tomato plants (or other bush type plants, and even more in the top of the garden.

Topsy Turvy Planter

The Topsy Turvy planter can be found for under $20 at several places on the web. It was featured in Time magazine as one of the Amazing inventions of the year. This hanging tomato planter basically holds one plant, although some folks will plant 2 (one on top, another on the bottom). You start the plant in a normal peat pot or other starter medium, and wait til it’s several inches tall. It is then transplanted to the hanger. It needs to be mature enough that the root system will be held in place adequately once the unit is hung upside down, so the real key is the root system, not the above the ground plant.

After reviewing several customer comments on review sites around the web, the consensus is that there are a lot of advantages to the concept of an upside down hanging tomato planter. There are no problems with slugs or other “ground based” pests. Even though it is a container, it s fairly well covered and so doesn’t need a lot of water. There is little need to stake or cage the plants, as gravity helps train the plants well enough.

Although it’s advertised as a hanging tomato planter, it is also used successfully to grow other small bush type plants like peppers, eggplant, and herbs. They are inexpensive enough that you can use several for more than one type of vegetable or herb.

The main difficulties encountered come from the methods chosen to mount it. It can get fairly heavy with a full plant and a load of soil, especially when watered. If you are trying to move a fully loaded plant it can be difficult.

Why not just use dirt in a bucket?

You can find all sorts of plans on the web for building your own upside down tomato planter, using scrap buckets or the like. It turns out the Topsy Turvy is patented by Bill Felknor, a retired engineer from Oak Ridge, TN (home of Oak Ridge National Laboratories). The basic idea is that the Topsy Turvy planter adds a couple of foam disks to the interior of the planter, which aids greatly in keeping a consistent moisture level in the planter, which is the big problem on container grown plants. With these disks you can water less often, and run less risk of overwatering when you do water. (You can see more detail by clicking on the cutaway drawing to the right.)

You can buy the Topsy Turvy Upside-Down Tomato Planter at a great price at Amazon. While you are there you can check the other customer reviews.

Scroll down to see a video of the Topsy Turvy in action.

Upside Down Tomato Garden by Hammacher Schlemmer

This a heavy duty version of the same concept. It has a planter that can handle many more plants, is designed to hold some smaller plants like flowers and herbs in the top of the planter, and has a sturdy built in stand that holds the garden at the right height (about 4 1/2 ft).

This planter is an upright rectangle shape. To ensure that the unit is stable the base is filled with sand or alternatively water. The unit has five poles that provide the support to hold the square planter container in at it’s height of 52”. You assemble the unit and finish by adding soil in the top of the planter. This planter can grow peppers, eggplant, or even leafy vegetables like spinach or lettuce, or if you want you can add herbs and flowers. The tomato plants are inserted to grow upside-down in holes in the bottom of the planter unit.

One advantage of this garden over the Topsy Turvy is that this planter serves a dual purpose as it has both normal container garden in addition grows tomatoes from the bottom. Growing tomatoes upside down not only allows them to air ripen, but it reduces rot, and there are far fewer problems with soil borne garden pests. The garden is fairly easy to assemble, but be sure that you put it where you will want it as it gets heavy when loaded with soil (it will hold almost 80 lbs of soil), and also make sure you pick a level spot to put it in, so that it remains stable. As with almost all container plants, you need to monitor the moisture levels, as it will tend to dry out quicker than the garden.

This tomato garden is perfect for your balcony or a patio for the apartment dweller, or on a patio or deck for those just looking to put a little bit of the garden closer to the kitchen.

You can buy the The Upside-down Tomato Garden at Amazon.