Last season, I had wanted to try to get as many tomatoes into my garden as possible...I'd seen the upside down tomato planters and thought: Hey I can do that. Those puppies are expensive. Mine came in just under ten bucks each for all materials, including soil. The advantage to the ones I created is that they can be used for years.
Materials:
3-5 gallon paint buckets with handles.
Doorknob drill attachment for your hand drill.
Coffee filter.
Good organic soil.
Tomato. I found that the small cherry sizes did better than the larger varieties.
Just drill a hole in the bottom of the bucket, lay it on its side, and carefully place the tomato through the hole. You cold use the coffee filter with a slit cut into it to cover the hole a bit prior to sticking the soil in. I found that it helped keep the tomato in place through the first few waterings.
Place the soil into the buckets and tamp carefully around the roots. I had to keep spinning the thing on its side in order to keep the soil from squashing the root ball.
Hang it up on a hook arm and keep it watered.
I made about eight of these, and all produced good, disease free tomatoes.
Two of them have even survived through the winter and are now, in 2008 June, producing tomatoes again! Amazingly simple project....
