I bought two upside down planters from ebay for a total of $20 including shipping and headed off to the local garden center to find the rest of whats required. I ended up with a 25 litre bag of peat, a watering can and the plants. The tomato plant is from Father Tom from Floriana and the strawberry from Nellie Kelly
If your doing this for yourselves something to note here is the size of the plant, I didnt think to much about it until I started putting them into the planters. You need a plant with some roots on it so that the soil will hold the plant in place and stop it falling out the hole in the bottom of th planter.
You also need a plant thats no so developed that the root ball wont fit through the hole in the first place.
Mine only just fitted and in hindsight I would have got slightly less developed plants.The 25 litre size bag of peat that I got was enough to fill the two planters to the recommended two inches below the top and have a little left over for another day.
The planter kits themselves that I bought in consisted of a vinyl bag with a metal band around the top. The band has four metal cables attached to it which are in turn connected to a loop so you can hang it.
The inside of the planter bag has four straps from the top metal band to the stitching for the base which is help it cope with the weight and stress. There is a plastic rim which fits over the metal band at the top of the bag as well as a cap which clips into the inside of the ring. The cap has a whole in the middle making watering easy without removing the top. The planter also comes with a foam pad with a hole in the middle and large sturdy hook. The strawberry planters hook wasnt at big but Im guessing thats because it will carry less weight overall.
The weight of these planters is going to be considerable once you have filled them with peat, more when its nice and wet and more again when your huge crop of tomatoes are hanging from it. For this reason you need to make sure that whatever you screw the hook that comes with the planter into is very solid and secure. Pulling down part of your house just to grow some tomatoes isnt going to make the best financial sense!
I chose the eve endboard on the house and drilled a pilot hole a few mm smaller than the size of each hook before screwing them in. Which them in place and some heavy pulling on them Im satisfied they are not going anywhere no matter how many tomatoes I get.
Actually planting the plants in the planters is quite easy once you have a few things setup. Get a length of steel rod or fix another hook into a wooden board. Place that between two things that allow you to easily get at the top of the planters whilst having space underneath for the plant to hang. I used the corner between two balcony rails which was the ideal height although I suspect two workmate A frames or between two kitchen worktops would be good two. I placed the foam pad inside the base of the planter which apparently helps to stop the plant coming back out the hole.
Once setup I carefully removed the plant from its planter pot and even more carefully removed the soil from around the roots. I did this over the new planter allowing the soil to fall into it with the thought being that the plant would be 'used' to that soil. The now much smaller looking plant was then turned upside down to be held by the roots with my left hand whilst reaching inside the planter with my right hand. Moving the soil aside I pushed a thumb an two fingers through the hole allowing me to grasp the roots carefully and then feed the whole lot through the hole. Once all the roots when inside the planter I distributed them round and placed some of the soil on them. I then used the new peat to fill the rest of the bags to within about two inches from the top.
At this point I fitted the plastic cap on the top and then gave the peat a heavy drenching from my watering can. After a few minutes the excess water came trickling out of the whole where the plant is and continued dripping for about 15mins. After the water had more or less stopped trickling out I then lifted the whole planter off the rod I had used and onto the hook in the eves. If your doing this on a ladder be very careful, it weights alot now its full of wet soil!
Thats it for now, they are in place, one with tomatoes and one with strawberries. I will be updating on their progress when/if they have some and with any luck I will have lovely harvest later in the year.
If this works then the plan is (once we move to our new place) to build my own upside down planters rather than buying them and include such niceties as an auto watering system. Lets see how these do first :)
