A couple of months ago I was reading some articles on growing tomatoes upside down (here and here). The idea of doing something different appeals to me just for the sake of it but I also remember that last year our tomato harvest suffered quite a lot of slug damage. Hanging the plants upside down should make the fruit more accessible to us and less accessible to the gastropod population of our garden!

The containers are just two litre soft drinks bottles with the bottom cut off and the top turned inside out (I relied on brute force rather than any kind of heat gun, keeping everything low tech). We built an A-frame structure from bamboo and suspended each one with garden wire supported by a couple of bits of string. Click on the image and you can see some more shots of the overall construction.

I’m looking forward to seeing how they do. We started our tomatoes growing a bit late so they are all quite wimpy but a few more days of weather like yesterday and they may start to shoot up (or down as the case may be). If the structure proves stable we may also put some basil in the top; we’ve also got some tomatoes planted in the traditional orientation below the frame (again hoping that the ones above don’t fall!)

Tags: tomatoes, gardening, upside-down