More Frugal Experimenting on the Johnston Homestead

My mom got one of those topsy turvy tomato planters you see all over the place that grows the plant upside down. We got to thinking that maybe someone had figured how to “home-make” one. A friend googled it and came up with a plan.

We took a 5 gallon pail (acquired through a friend that owns a bakery) and cut a 2 1/2 inch hole in the bottom for the plant to go through.

In the ready made one there is a piece of foam to go around the stem of the plant. I had packing foam that we must have gotten a computer something in and used that. That’s the red thing in the picture. In the other bucket (picture down to the right here) we are experimenting with the black ground cloth instead of the foam.

So, we put the foam around the base of the stem, gently pushed the plant through the hole, filled the bucket up with some light compost and hung it up. Then we watered it.

We'll try to keep you posted on the results. Oh, and one place we hung them was rather windy so John stapled some clear plastic around the buckets and the plants breathed a sigh of relief. So did we.

Another thing, I asked the nursery lady what kind of plant to put in there. She seemed to think that a medium sized tomato is best. Or a cherry type. Then there’s Roma. We are trying a grape tomato and some medium sized ones. Wish us oodles of frugal tomoddles.