Tomato Casual » Reader Questions About Upside Down Tomatoes

upside-down-tomatoes By Vanessa Richins

Upside-down tomatoes continue to be a garden trend.

This week we have two questions from readers about this growing style.

From Kacy:

“Can one plant 2 tomato plants upside down in a 5 gallon bucket ? Such as 2 holes in the bucket, will there be enought room to grow both?”

Hi Kacy! Yes, you can do 2 tomato plants. It would work better if you drilled both a 2″ hole and smaller drainage holes in both the bottom and the lid to plant one at each end. You will need to watch carefully and add soil as needed. You will also need to make sure to use fertilizers as needed since there will be 2 plants competing for all of the nutrients.

From JimQPublic:

“I’ve been thinking of going to containers for tomatoes because the best spot in the yard has seen tomatoes 5 years in a row and it seems doing containers with new soil each year will be safer. I also hate training the vines onto trellis or cages. It seems this method would solve both problems.

Question: Would elevated planting boxes with the vines growing conventionally and hanging over the side work as well? I was thinking that way I could use a self-watering Earthbox-style system which would reduce the chance of drying out. Obviously that wouldn’t work with a hole in the bottom!”

Hello Jim! You could use a box like you describe. One reason you would want to support a tomato plant is that it has a greater chance for attack from insects and diseases when the stems are directly touching the ground. Since your boxes are elevated (depending on how far off the ground), that would eliminate this problem.

What other questions do you have about your upside-down tomatoes?