The Upside Down World of Gardening

I am not a gardening expert, but I wear gardening on my sleeve -sometimes literally. Amongst my less experienced friends and neighbors, I'm called the expert. I enjoy getting the gardening questions, like to be helpful. To me, gardening is a universe that we can all choose to travel in, with different choices, decisions, and results. But it was hard for me last year, when I heard so many youngish city folk talking-up the upside-down tomatoes. I understood that it could work, I understood that tomatoes are vines, but I didn't understand the excitement! I had to admit to not knowing about it, I had to stay quiet.

I wonder if its no surprise that I've heard little of hanging tomato gardens this summer? I can understand a city gardener with limited space wanting to get their tomatoes off the ground. But when I saw this one on Sunday, on my block, in a nice front yard garden, I thought -oh my, there's one of those upside down things. And, while the hanging tomato plants were maybe 12-inches long, they had one or two tomatoes on each. Its a bad photo, but if you click on it, look closely and you'll probably see how small the plants are. This is in the yard of a knowledgeable gardener, so I cannot believe it has something to do with nutrients or soil or any ordinary gardening issue. It appears all contraption, no plant.

Trey, at Thegoldengecko.com, thinks that TopsyTurvy is iconic of the current gardening excitement. Maybe business taking advantage of new gardeners too? Click the TopsyTurvy link for a funny video of two older people struggling to grow their tomatoes until they get their topsy turvy on. Does any of the claim below make any sense?

The Upside Down Tomato Planter

Topsy Turvy® tomato planter works in a simple yet ingenious way. As the sun warms the plant like a greenhouse, the root system explodes and thrives (or burns) inside the planter. Because Topsy Turvy® tomato planter is upside down, water and nutrients pour (WHAT?!) directly from the root to the fruit, giving you up to 30 pounds (because of pouring water/nutrients?) of deliciously ripe tomatoes per plant!