Make your own upside down tomato planter
15.7 years ago cheap, peppers, tomato
Every time my daughter sees the upside down tomato planter (Topsy Turvy
Though this has been commercialized recently, the concept growing plants upside down is not a new one. Many people have been growing plants like tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets or hanging baskets for decades. Not having any spare bucket or hanging basket to sacrifice I went with my daughters suggestion and used a 2 liter bottle.
Materials required for you upside down tomato planter
- Empty 2-liter bottle
- Eye bolt with washer
- Duct tape, contact paper, or spray paint
- Drill or hot nail
Step 1 — Create access hole
Make a hole on the side of bottle, this has two purposes: it allows adding soil much easier and also provides an convenient way to water your plant. I used a 2-inch hole cutter, though you may also carefully cut a hole with a knife.
Step 2 — Add the hanger
By design 2-liter bottles are extra thick in on the bottom immediate center which will make a perfect place to hang it. I used a drill of the same diameter as the eye bolt. This allowed me to thread the bolt right into the bottle, which was pretty strong it itself. Though expecting a great harvest, I also added a bolt to prevent the discovery of my plant on the ground after having a hard fall.
Step 3 — Covering your planter
Roots can be damaged if exposed to light for long periods of time so you need to cover your planter. You should consider color depending on where you live. In colder regions a darker color will help keep the soil warm on cool mornings, though in hotter climates a dark color could fry the plant. I would recommend a medium to light green color for moderate heat absorption and little more aesthetically pleasing in the garden. Not having any paint I used good ole duct tape. Wrapping around the entire bottle (even covering the access hole.
I then cut an X through the access hole and bent the corners in to soften the rough edges caused by cutting the hole.
Step 4 — Decorate (optional unless you have kids)
We used permanent markers to personalize both of my daughters upside down tomato planters.
This completes the construction of your upside down tomato planter. I will admit the first design flaw of this planter is its size. It will be fine for root growth but it can dry out very quickly. In response to this water retention was my primary concern when deciding on medium to fill the planters with.
I chose 2 parts (peat moss or coconut coir okay substitutes) , 1 part perlite, and 1 part Groden granulates. WonderSoil
To give the plants a good head start I also mixed in a couple of tablespoons of bone meal and tablespoon of balanced organic fertilizer. Add some water until the mix has the consistency of a wrung out sponge .
Lastly I used my tomato plants from my hydroponic experiment and carefully fed the roots into the now bottom opening of the bottle. We then added our soil mix until it reached the bottom of the access hole. Given the plants had a well established root system just the friction and weight of the soil is enough to keep the plant from falling out
Even though the medium retains water well the plants should be watered every day to the point until some water comes out the bottom. Within 24 hours we can already see the leaves turning over to face the sun.
You can also try other heat loving plants such as peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini. So if you every wanted to try growing plants upside down with the directions above you can have your own for less than $0.50.
If you want something a little more aesthetically pleasing there is always the commercial option, this one from Gardener’s Supply seems much more sturdy than the ones I have seen on TV:
UPDATE: 05/24/09
It has finally started to get a little warmer at night in my garden so seems like a good time for a little update on the upside down tomato planter. I wish I could give a direct comparison of the growth of these plants with plants a planted at the same time in the ground though unfortunately we had a light freeze that killed them off. Interesting enough both plants in the upside down tomato planter survived and even are showing some small blossoms.
Now as part of my pepper planting experiment, I also put a pepper plant in an upside down tomato planter with much less exciting success. Just to test if my super paranoid water retention worries had any backing I simply filled this one with regular potting mix. And the plant dried out very quickly which shows in the following results.
Given these results I am going to stick with my 2 parts WonderSoil
Tags: cheap, led, organic vegetables, outdoor plants, pepper plants, tomato plants, upside down tomato planter, vegetables
Growing peppers at high latitudes
15.7 years ago hydroponics, indoor growbox, peppers
Here in the Seattle area we are, as you say, latitudelly challenged. We are fortunately to have the Pacific Ocean to give us mild winters and summers though our distance from the equator provides our plants with less intense light and a relatively short growing season for summer crops. One in particular difficult summer crop are peppers.
This is important because one of the major exports of my garden are the ingredients to allow me to make homemade garden salsa (tomatoes, garlic, onions, cilantro, jalapeño peppers) Al ingredients come from my garden (except for jalapeño peppers) This year I am determined to fix this.
I have a couple strategies for doing this, the first is to “start early” pepper plants require 80-110 days from seedling to harvest, timing is everything. Given our late winters here over the past couple years, I don’t really have much of a cushion here and would also be nice if the peppers were ripe when the tomatoes are getting red as well. To get a head start many weeks ago I planted several jalapeño pepper seeds and they currently are turning into some great looking pepper plants in my grow box. As they have grown I have potted them up to encourage them to continue to grow vigorously.
Not wanting to put my eggs peppers in one basket, I have decided to try a few different techniques in case one completely fails I hopefully have a couple backups:
- Grow pepper plant in grow box in WonderSoil
- Grow pepper plant hydroponically using a Grodan Gro-Blocks
- Grow pepper plant in the ground beside my tomatoes
- Grow pepper plant in large pot in sunniest location
I honestly can not really predict the outcome of this experiment. The grow box as the advantage of accurate temperature control but the CFLs though work great can’t compare to full sun. On the other hand outdoors has the great light intensity of the actual sun though given the pepper plants can stop growing lacking 60 degree nights and at least 70 degrees during day. Given we don’t have too many nights greater than 60 degrees the grow box might have a chance.
UPDATE — 05/25/2009
Plant grown in WonderSoil in grow box at temperature controlled to remain above 60 degrees at night and a high of 80 during the day. This is amazing results compared to the 2.5 inch plants I started with less than a month ago.
Plant grown hydroponically using a Grodan Gro-Blocks also in temperature controlled grow box.
Plant grow in actual dirt outside in good light
Plant grown in pot outside…well this one is already out after some high winds and cold mornings this one was looking pretty bad to I brought to the infirmary (the grow box) to bring it back to life, which seems to have done wonders.
The obvious winner at this point is the pepper plant in WonderSoil in the grow box, though I have noticed some recent growth in the outdoor plant now the weather has started warming up, so might be some time for Mother Nature to redeem itself. Overall I have been very impressed with the results of the grow box but still need to see if I can get flowers and fruit…until the next update…
UPDATE — 06/20/2009
We were blessed with some warm weather so the outdoor potted plant has been doing great blossoming and almost a dozen of good sized peppers growing.
I have seen plenty of blossoms on the pepper plants in the grow box though I have not have and fruit set. I have two theories what is causing this, first is we have hat some hot weather with the garage getting over 85 degrees even with best exhaust and airflow it was hard to keep the temperature from exceeding 90 degrees which causes the blossoms to drop. The second reason is I have been attempting to hand pollinate the flowers with the absence of some nice bees to do the work for me. I have been using a fine paintbrush without much luck. Switching to having better airflow and using a Q-Tip to simulate a bees bottom.
The plant I had in the ground eventually got overtaken by a pumpkin plant which I removed and moved to the grow box given it had not shown any significant signs of growth since I transplanted it there.
Right now seems the best method is grow the pepper plant to about 18 inches and just let mother nature take care of things at that point.
Tags: cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, growbox, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, salsa garden, tomato plants, vegetables
Always have a Plan B in gardening
15.7 years ago garden planning, indoor seed starting
In college I had a business class, it definitely wasn’t the most memorable since all I remember it had something to do with working with small businesses. There was an important takeaway, which was always have a “Plan B”. The teacher used this term in particular when we were preparing to give presentations to the class, it was fine to use a PowerPoint presentation, though better have some overhead slides “just in case,” which many times became a necessity in the end due to “technical issues”.
This advice definitely applies to gardening as well. In my case, especially if you want to push your planting date for your summer vegetables due to your short growing season. It is great to be ambitious and plan on getting your tomatoes out weeks before your last frost date, though when the inevitable frost comes and kills your plants you need a “Plan B” Last year, I really didn’t have one so I was forced to go to my nursery and blowing my gardening budget on the limited selection of summer vegetable seedlings.
This year I was a little smarter and planted my seeds still ambitiously but also planted a few more a couple week later. This way, if Mother Nature is cruel to my optimism I still have a backup. If she is kind I always have some extra tomato/pepper seedlings to offer to friends and neighbors or create a couple more upside down tomato/pepper planters.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, outdoor plants, pepper plants, tomato plants, vegetables
Cheap fogger hydroponics final results
15.7 years ago aeroponics, cheap, hydroponics, peppers, tomato
In case you missed them here is the original post on the creation of this fogger hydroponic system, and the latest update (before this one).
The plants still are still looking pretty healthy with the exception of a little phosphorus deficiency, but the blame goes on me for that one. Been a little busy at work and have been neglecting the plants.
I decided to end this experiment since their roots were starting to get tangled and I want to use these plants for another project.
These roots are healthier than they look, some soil leached in when I put some of my pepper plants on top of the hydroponic box.
This pepper plant look really good, haven’t decided what to do with it yet. Maybe the victim volunteer for the next hydroponic experiment.
Tags: cheap, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, vegetables
Hardening off plants in the grow box
15.8 years ago computer, computer power control, cucumbers, electronics, indoor growbox, tomato
When you have seedlings growing indoors or a greenhouse during their life they have had the opportunity spending it in a near perfect environment with controlled temperatures, consistent lighting, no wind, etc. If you take this happy plant and move it directly into the wild (your garden) it can, and probably will, go into shock leading to its sudden death. The solution to this problem is to hardening off the plant. This is a process of slowly getting the plant accustomed to the real world environment a couple hours at a time.
You start by bringing the plant outside for two hours in the late evening or early morning hours. If the plant begins to wilt let it recover indoors until it appears healthy again. Each day increasing the amount of time it is exposed to the outdoors over 1-2 weeks period, or until the plant can survive a full day/night outside. At this time it is ready to get its permanent home in your garden.
This process takes a lot of patience, which as they say is a virtue. Unfortunately I believe I am missing this virtue. My history of hardening off plants follows a similar pattern; bring out a plant in the evening with the full intentions of bringing it back in after a few hours, unfortunately I forget and it spends its first day out in the cold all night which normally the demise of my summer plants.
![image[18]](https://i0.wp.com/www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/image18.png)
This year I am using my grow box to harden off my plants. Normally the grow box runs at about 68-72 degrees which is a great environment for my seedlings. By allowing some hot air to vent and lowering the maximum temperature setting in the software I am able to bump the temperature down to a range of 57-65 degrees. After a few days I will drop the temperature a few degrees until it has similar low temperature to the outdoors, while still staying at a safe temperature for the plants.
Given today using an unknown neighbor’s weather station we had a high of 48.2F and low of 35.1F I still have some time before I can safely bring my tomatoes/cucumbers outside but they should be toughened (hardening) up and ready to go when it is.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, growbox, led, outdoor plants, tomato plants, vegetables
EasyBloom plant sensor review
15.8 years ago computer, EasyBloom, electronics, gadget, garden planning, product review
I will admit, I have a weakness for electronic gadgets, when I got wind of the EasyBloom I just had to try it out. The EasyBloom plant sensor is a device with built-in sensors to measure light intensity, humidity, temperature, and moisture content in your soil. It has three basic modes: Recommend, Monitor, and Water.
With the Recommend setting you place the EasyBloom into a location you want to grow something, let it sit there for at least 24 hours, plug it into your computer, and it will provide a detailed analysis of your planting area and provide a list of plants that would thrive in that location.
The Monitor setting allows you to diagnose problems with a particular plant. You first define the type of plant you want to monitor, turn on the device and place it next to the not so healthy plant, water, return 24 hours later, and plug it again into your computer. It will use the data stored in the sensors to give you a diagnosis to what the plant’s ailment might be.. Of course, this will not diagnose various pest or disease issue but can let you know if you have planted a little too early, in the wrong location, or are not watering enough (or too much) based on your soil structure.
Finally it has the water setting which the name should imply, will notify you when you need to water your plants.
To test this thing out I had three locations in mind to take measurements, each of which would provide a huge diversity of readings.
First, I put the EasyBloom in my grow box in the Recommend mode. I have complete control over the temperature and lighting I definitely could confirm the devices accuracy and I expected to see decent diversity of plants recommended. After placing the device in my grow box for almost 24 hours (see missing results below)
Overall the readings were nearly exactly what I expected though I was hoping to get a full sun rating, guess I may need to add an extra bulb to the box. Even with my conditions it did recommend 176 plants that I could grow inside it to maturity, though I am going to demand a rematch after adding a little more light
Second, I brought the sensor and set it up next to my office window. Currently I am growing Lemon Verbena I transplanted from my garden. I wasn’t concerned about moisture content so for this reading I didn’t include the moisture sensor and here were the results that were returned.
After this result I felt a little better about my grow box since it at least it was beating of an eastern facing window sill. With this result the program recommended 92 shade loving plants with Lemon Verbena not being one of them, though I have been providing some supplemental light to the plants.
Finally, I used the EasyBloom on my southern facing fence line plot (where I normally grow my cucumbers and tomatoes) This is where I wondered of the usefulness of EasyBloom to actually give good information about planning a garden in the offseason. Though I can not grow tomatoes outside right now due to cold, would it still let me know that it was still possible. Well here are the readings:
When I put the sensor outside it was raining pretty hard so passed the “weather proof” test. Though it did clear up the next day which is reflected in the “Full Sun” light reading. This was the obvious winner with 3458 plants recommended with the over 5000 in their database.
In conclusion, I will be the first to admit that the EasyBloom would not be on the necessity list for gardening tools, but for a beginning gardener it could provide some valuable incites to help your first few years be much more successful. For nerds/geeks like me it is a pretty cool toy, that I will be sure to be using in testing new lighting and grow box designs in the future.
Tags: cheap, growbox, led, outdoor plants, tomato plants, vegetables
