On of a common questions I still get is, do you still grow tomatoes upside down? Does that really work better than just planting in the ground? Well I decided to do a little experiment and start several tomato plants from seeds and grow two in an official Topsy Turvy planter, two in the ground with fertile soil, and one in a homemade self watering container. Each plant was…
width=”549″ height=”412″ /> I am always looking for ways to enable myself to grow more in my small suburban yard. One technique to do this is using the maximum vertical space to your advantage. Whether this is growing your tomatoes and cucumbers up a trellis or growing some tomatoes from hanging upside down planters the more you successfully make use of this space the higher yields you can achieve….
I made a little discovery last year and that is that peppers really don’t need a lot of room to grow, require soil a little warmer than it normally gets around here, and do not mind getting a little dry between watering. This seems like great characteristics to grow peppers in vertical containers. With this in mind at the end of last year I picked up a couple of…
2010 has been a pretty exciting year for CheapVegetableGardener.com. Bringing on a significant number of more readers and many great mentions by some large publications, I thought I would mention the top 5 posts of 2010 which helped this happen in case you missed them. Being kicked off by an awesome mention in a New York Times article and subsequent interview on Science Friday on NPR, this article on…
With stores making way for Halloween and Christmas decorations, now is the perfect time to find some great closeout deals at your local grocery store or garden center. I had meant to imitate the Topsy Turvy planters above, but at 60-70% off I was not even cheap enough to pass up on these deals for the Topsy Turvy Strawberry Planter (picked up two at $1.99 each) and the Topsy…
This is an unfortunately record, being the latest I have gotten my first ripe tomato. In case if anyone was wondering, this was on the 1 gallon milk carton upside down garden planter.
When I mention I grow tomatoes upside down many people ask me, “Why don’t you grow tomatoes in the ground?” The surprise answer is, I do grow both in the ground and in the air. The picture above shows my current tomato plants I am growing in the one location with sufficient sunlight to grow them, which might explain the reason why I look alternate options for adding more…
We were very excited to be featured in The New York Times last Thursday. Welcome to the many new visitors that visiting us this week. If you want to check out the entire article it is available online. I have been considering creating a press page and figured this was a good opportunity to start a “CVG featured in the press page”
Over the past year I have created a few different versions of garden planters for growing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers inspired from my daughter watching a Topsy Turvy tomato planter commercial. Here is a quick summary of the different options which you can click the link for full instructions how to build on yourself. 2 Liter – The Original — This is the one that started it all. Very simple…
I wanted to see if (how much) my yields varied by allowing more volume of dirt in my homemade tomato planter, so I made this variation with the same type and size “Husky Cherry” seedling I am using in my 2-liter planter version. The build for this one is also very simple: I started with an organic milk carton given it was already opaque, but if you have the…
Though my first attempt at an upside down tomato planter worked out great, I have a habit of forgetting to water the plants everyday. More commonly when we have decent rains when only the hanging tomato planters need to be watered. So this year I have modified my design a little to make this a little easier. As a bonus you can create this new version much quicker and…