Topsey Turvey Tomato Planters

[savant365]

Hi all,
I bought a couple of those topsey turvey planters and wanted to know if anyone here has tried them? Any tips on getting the best tomatoes from them would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

Charlie

 

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[Dave44]

I had some of these last year cuase they looked so good, and I thought, now don't plants always try to grow up?
Well if you were wondering, yes they do, and they will crack and break when tomatoes finally grow on them.
And I also thought, how much water is too much, it runs out so fast? Well I never found the happy place on that, twice a day, once a day, three times a day. Lot of splitting.
All I wanted was stinkin tomatoes without too much effort. I will stick to planters or stakes, easier in my opinion. Oh and the birds really like them because they are high enough not to have predators. Peck pretty little holes in them, just when the are turning.
Please tell me where I went wrong after you figure it all out!
Hope this post finds you well and in no way diminishes your exploration of tomato utopia

 

[savant365]

Well that sucks! I have cats to take care of the birds but the rest is a little disturbing. I promise if I find the road to tomato utopia I will draw a detailed map and share it with all.

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

If someone figures out a good way to do them, they'll have to post it (I hope).

I tried the topsy turvey tomatoes, too. Same result as yours. Plus, I tried the strawberry bags - could not ever keep them watered well enough.

Water in, water out. Dried plants - broken stems - oh, and on the tomatoes, a couple bigger ones fell off way before they were ripe. (piece of stem and all).

B

 

[CaptainRobin]

Last year I used the coconut fiber lined hanging baskets with the "Millionaire" cherry 'maters. We had more than we could use. The plants bent over on their own, and the stems toughened up themselves. I used the 14" wire baskets. filled with potting soil, three plants per planter. Water once a day until the water runs out the bottom.
Robin

 

[Dave44]

Thank you Texas, I will try that.
I was going to surround them with chicken wire laced with razor wire, surrounded with a moat of hot tar (Labrea style), and then claymores a little further out so that the deer parts didn't mess with my tomatoes. I like tomatoes, but your way sounds easier. I still have the deer part problem though

 

[savant365]

Thanks for all the input everyone, I'm looking forward to home grown tomatoes. I think it would be a good idea to put something soft under them to cushion their fall. I think I am going to go with Roma tomatoes too. They are smaller so maybe they wont fall off and they have a great flavor too. I'm gonna try the golf ball trick to, we have an abundance of starlings here so maybe that will help. I have a plastic owl for scaring away birds so I'll move it closer.

HH Charlie

 

[savant365]

Thanks for all the input everyone, I'm looking forward to home grown tomatoes. I think it would be a good idea to put something soft under them to cushion their fall. I think I am going to go with Roma tomatoes too. They are smaller so maybe they wont fall off and they have a great flavor too. I'm gonna try the golf ball trick to, we have an abundance of starlings here so maybe that will help. I have a plastic owl for scaring away birds so I'll move it closer.

HH Charlie

take a white plastic bag and cut wings out of it and tape it to your owls back...so it flops around in the wind. You need to move hoot around ever so often or the birds catch on pretty quick.

Good idea thanks.

 

[Produce Guy]

My dad had a bet with a neighbor who could grow better tomatoes,the neighbor use the Topssey Turvey pice of crap and my dad used a longsleeve t-shirt ,my dad won hands down.

 

[Tubecity]

I haven't heard of anyone having any luck with that Topsey Turvey, including me. I'll give it one more try this year
except I'm going to put some of the smaller hot pepper plants in them. If that don't work, I'm tossing them out.

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

I am not going to waste my money again this year - but, if anyone does get the Topsy Turvey thing to work, I hope they post their "secrets"
for doing it.

One thing I had thought of doing, was to take some diaper innards and put them in the thing. The agm in the diapers would hold water for quite awhile and make stronger plants, I think. The only problem with agm, is that, if it dries out - it turns into concrete.

Again - if anyone makes it work, I'd really appreciate seeing it - take pics and explain how you got it to work. I have a beautiful 10 x 10 beam
across my front porch that would look great with hanging tomatoes. (it didn't look so good with dead and breaking tomatoes and strawberries.


This year, I will settle for hanging flowers on it.

Beth

 

[savant365]

Ok, I got them potted and hung yesterday. I only bought 2 plants, a Roma and an Early Girl. I've never tried the Early girls before, does anyone have any feedback about them? I just noticed that it said I could have tomatoes in 50 days so I thought I would try it. I didn't realize that you could put more plants in the sides of the topsey turveys until I got them out of the box so I'm gonna get some more plants and load them up. I went out to water them today and noticed that the Roma plant has already started to curve and grow upwards. If I get some decent results I'll post up some pictures.

 

[WindHarvester]

We've never used the Topsy Turvey but always wondered how they would turn out. As far as the constant watering, one trick is to put an unused baby diaper in with the soil and in all honesty it really helps. We usually cut them open and only use the "gelatin" like substance. Gardening stores often sell the same stuff but we don't like wasting money if we can get a better deal.

 

[NaturalJWL]

I had good luck last year putting bush cucumbers in hanging baskets on the porch. I let them run across the lattice and had plenty. One side of the porch the basket was shaded and it did the best, the one in the sun dried out too fast, both grew into the sun on the lattice. The one with it's feet in the shade I only watered every other day, the other, water was a problem on really hot days, I used a small soda bottle with a pinhole to drip. Just an experiment, I think this time I might just plant near the fence and start them up it. Squirrels got ALL the tomatoes green.

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

WindHarvester,

Yea - the stuff in the diapers is what I was talking about - I know it works for my houseplants when I am away.

Beth

 

[WindHarvester]

WindHarvester,

Yea - the stuff in the diapers is what I was talking about - I know it works for my houseplants when I am away.

Beth

I hadn't seen your post Beth, I guess great minds think alike.

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

Yes, they do.

I used to work for P & G, and made Pampers and Luvs. I first got the idea back in the 80's when it came out. We were testing it, and we were
dumping it in by hand on the test line. Every pocket ended up with agm (auto-gelling material). When you'd wash your clothes, it would soak up
the water in your washing machine and it would look like the "blob" in there.

You do want to watch when it dries, though - it would actually "glue" your pockets together. Like concrete. The way to stop that is to just keep breaking it up if it does that - it will re-absorb water again. Its amazing stuff!!

Beth

 

[WindHarvester]

Yes, they do.

I used to work for P & G, and made Pampers and Luvs. I first got the idea back in the 80's when it came out. We were testing it, and we were
dumping it in by hand on the test line. Every pocket ended up with agm (auto-gelling material). When you'd wash your clothes, it would soak up
the water in your washing machine and it would look like the "blob" in there.

You do want to watch when it dries, though - it would actually "glue" your pockets together. Like concrete. The way to stop that is to just keep breaking it up if it does that - it will re-absorb water again. Its amazing stuff!!

Beth

Amazing story Beth.


I first read of this stuff in an article about people who would use it for growing pot deep in the woods, less chance of getting caught going back and forth to water.

I think I read it in Hightimes. Just kidding of course, it was an article in some newspaper.

 

[savant365]

I got my first bloom yesterday, almost a month after planting them. I have 6 tomato plants and 1 green pepper plant, so far so good I've watered them daily and used miracle gro every 2 weeks, they look very healthy. We had a frost warning last week so I put some garbage bags over them for the night and saved them. It's been in the 90's the last few days and they really took off.

Charlie