Upside-Down Experiment

I decided to try my hand at upside-down veg growing this year. I've attempted gardening for many years now - pretty much ever since I moved out of the dorms. When I lived in the bottoms, I had a pretty good garden going. I hoed a 4'x4' plot in a nice sunny spot that was overflowing with tomatoes and peppers. When I moved to washington street, the lack of yard forced me to try a few plants in the sunniest spots I could find, but with no success.

In my current location I've had minimal success as well. I hoed a 4'x8' plot two years ago and have planted it with tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Noel would not let me put it in the front yard, so I put it in the sunniest spot in back. Unfortunately, this spot just isn't that sunny - poor tree placement. The plot gets great morning sun, but is covered by noon and is spotty in the afternoon. Over the course of the summer the plants will generally grow nice and tall, if the rabbits don’t get to them first. When it comes time for them to fruit - they just won't produce. The birds usually manage to peck away at the few we do get and then I walk away from yet another failed experiment.

So what to do this year? I filled the plot with rhubarb and asparagus. My understanding is that they don’t require quite as much sun as the bigger fruited plants, and that they take a couple years to establish. The plan is to do some tree trimming (for a future garage) in the mean time and maybe by the time the plants are ready they'll have plenty of sun.

I had resigned myself to scamming tomatoes from other gardeners when my grandfather (who religiously starts the plants in his basement for everyone he knows) gave me 5 plants. I gave three of them to Noel’s folks and I kept two. I put a cherry tomato plant in a pot, which I set on the end of my driveway as it gets more sun than the rest of the back yard. The cherry tomato is doing great and after just a month is 3’-4’ tall and fruiting. I decided to hang the other one.

I'd been seeing numerous contraptions for sale to hang your garden veggies upside-down. They are touted as being better for the plant and the environment. They waste less water / fertilizer and keep the plant from getting diseased by keeping the fruit off the ground. I decided to try it out. Instead of buying one, I opted to make my own. I got the biggest coffee container I could find and cut a 2” diameter hole in the bottom, just big enough to fit the plant through. I also drilled 4 drain holes around the edges. Then I took some filter fabric and cut it into a circle with a slit down one radius. I put the plant through the hole, wrapped the filter fabric around the stem – making sure it covered all the holes and went up the side of the can and then started filling the can with soil.

So far so good. The plant is about 1’ to 2’ tall, has a few flowers and looks healthy. Below are some photos from the past month.


Day 1 - After the first night the plant had already started trying to right itself.


Week 1 - It seemed to grow a lot in the first week. At this point most of the growth seemed downward, but with the leaves turned upright.


Week 4 - Eventually the plant started growing upward, which kinda suprised me. So far I've been letting nature do most to all of the watering and have yet to fertilize. A few buds showed up within the last couple of days, so I think it is time to fertilize.