Hi Everyone.

I have been catching up on reading some old posts about tomatoes in upside-down pots. Can those of you who tried this method let me know how sucessful it was? Also someone tried hanging a broccoli plant (Kerry?), did that work? I am well enough after 5 years to try having a vege garden again. I have planted in a disused 3-sided farm shed in old meal troughs - 1 foot across x 6 feet long, and so far have Russian Red & Sweet 100 tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, leeks, silverbeet, cauli, celery, red & yellow peppers, parsley, courgette & I have planted a meyer lemon in a tub. I have also planted radish & lettuce seed. In my old neglected outside garden I have planted a few pumpkin seeds saved from a particular yummy pumpkin, and have planted potatoes in pea straw. Everything is growing well but I may run out of growing space once the broccoli takes off!

I look forward to hearing from you all. Rachel.xx.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2007 05:29AM by Rachel - Ashburton.

Rachel, I don't want to put a damper on your enterprise, but I thought vegetables needed plenty of sunlight, 6 - 8 hours a day. Can they be grown under the shelter of a building? If it is only 3 sided and the open side is north facing, you might be OK. Sorry, I can't answer your questions about upside-down growing, I'm new to vege gardening myself.

You may want to check out this website www.hydrostacker.com

There was a very interesting article in the last Vegetable Grower News (www.vegetablegrowersnews.com) on a company growing strawberries in these units.
I think the story starts with Stacked strawberries ... , if you look the site up. I get the paper version.

P.S. Note to Lorna --- We need the south facing side up here to get any sun. It is now getting way below freezing every night here, and just getting up to freezing during the day. Have a good season down there.

As always,
Greg

The shed faces west & gets the sun from early morning til night.

Hi Greg, isn't it nice to know there are opposites in everything, even including the way sunshines! We've had dramatic improvements in our weather here, with lovely hot sunny days. My solitary square foot garden is doing well, as is the fish-bin planted with courgettes and capsicums and the three concrete breeze-blocks planted with tomatoes and basil. Hey, I'm good at this vege gardening game. Why didn't I start sooner?

Hi Rachel
I didn't do the hanging broccoli in the end; just the tomato. For the Summer I would have to put my tomato in a bigger container than the 4 litre bottle I used, as even in Winter it was always drying out and the plant would look at death's door until it had a guzzle and feed. I poked holes in my bottle though so that may not have been necessary as the water came gushing out everytime I poured it in. It wasn't perfect, but it was a fun experiment and we did get two nice trusses of incredibly sweet, juicy tomatoes from it mid Winter. Good luck and happy hangings.

Thanks Kerry. I have 6 broccoli plants, so I might try hanging 3 and leaving 3 where they are. Is it too late to plant tomato seeds? I found a packet of the "Mr T" at the big red shed today and would like to try them.

Rachel give the seeds a go, They should be alright.
Jean

Jean

My hanging tomato was started very late (Feb) so didn't give massive yields but the lovely sweet tomatoes I picked in May made it well worthwhile. I have another one going this year which is just starting to flower. I didn't find that it needed a lot of watering, however it was in a 10 litre paint bucket. I gave it a cup or 2 of water every second day.

I have planted 6 tomato seeds & have the punnet sitting on the bbq under the veranda so I can keep a close eye on them. Should be nice & warm. I had thought of planting the broccoli in 99 cent plastic buckets, hopefully one plant per bucket wont be too heavy! Might give it a go tomorrow.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2007 05:44AM by Rachel - Ashburton.