Growing Tomatoes Upside-Down

Posted by Angela England Apr 24, 2008

After starting several tomato seedlings we had several plants ready for planting before the danger of frost (and thunder storms!) had past in our area. So what to do - what to do? My husband and I had seen pictures of the tomatoes you can plant in the hanging bags so we decided to try our own hanging tomatoes with recycled bottle containers. One is a large 3-liter pop bottle, the other container we recycled was a large Sunny Delight juice blend bottle! Here's how we built them:

• Sidney cut the bottom off the bottles so they were open. When we turned the bottles upside-down to hang them, these largest openings would be on top.
• I placed the seedling and dirt ball into the bottle with the leaves and stem DOWN so the tomato plant came through the neck of the bottle, while the root ball stayed in the bulk of the main bottle itself.
• We filled the jug container full of organic potting soil mix, leaving enough room at the top to create a hanger.
• Sidney drilled some holes in the sides of the bottle and we used old coat hangers to create the hanger.
• We watered the entire tomato plant slowly to keep the soil from coming out and hung them in the shelter of our sunny patio spot.

Even with all the storms and windy days we've had both of the heirloom cherry tomato plants are doing really well already. One has roots that have grown almost completely up to the top of the sprite bottle. What a fun way to recycle what would otherwise be trash in celebration of Earth Day!