Upside down tomatos

I was at Walgreens the other day, and saw those little plastic upside down tomato bags. $10 each .......... I don't think so.

I can make some out of five gallon buckets that would be sturdier, and I can get buckets free.

Does anyone grow tomatoes like this? It seems like it would be a good deal, you would only have to make a substantial support, which I can do. It seems like the tomatoes would not have to be pinched back as much, and the chances of splitting stems would be reduced.

We do get wind here, so should I put them next to a wind break?

Steve XXtreme SW Utah

3700' elev zone 7-8

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Steve B
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I haven't personally grown them, DH doesn't want to, but our neighbors have been doing it for years with good results. The 'maters look and taste wonderful. Someone is very stubborn, and doesn't want to build the structure to hold them. Nan in DE

Reply to
Nanzi

Well, I hope to have the time this week to do some, and I will report in. I'm looking forward to it. It seems like it's going to be easier than weeding, and the hit and miss watering we have here. On some days, the ag water pressure is low, non existent, or the skunge in it plugs up a head and you don't notice it until the plant is dry and in shock. I think the buckets may be a little more easily managed.

Steve

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Steve B

Andy comments:

Well, you guys have motivated me to try it. I have some 5 gallon plastic buckets and about a half dozen sprouts I haven't transplanted yet....

It doesn't look like rocket surgery, and if it works, next year I'll decorate my front yard with little pinatas with tomatoes growing out of them... ,,,,, assuming my wife agrees, of course... :>)))))

Andy in Eureka, Texas

PS I bet that tomatoes grown upside down would make a great topping for anti-pasta ........

Reply to
AndyS

Here in Houston, Texas, we've had tomato blossoms for about 3 weeks, now.. but no tomatoes. Maybe it's too-early in the season? However, this is a big change for the better compared to last year - when the days were so hot the blossoms would drop about a two or two after opening!

Kelly Paul Graham

Reply to
kelly_graham77373

Need night time temps above 55F and daytime temp under 90F.

Reply to
Billy

garden. There, you can just about throw some seeds around and stuff would grow. Remember, I said, "just about". It was actually real work, tilling, hoeing, weeding, watering, fertilizing, just like anywhere else. But the humidity was always so high that even if it did get hot, it would be okay. Like Houston. I lived in Houston, Seabrook, and Galveston, too.

Tomatos have a problem called blossom drop, and that is what you have described. Night time temperatures are too high, and the blossoms fall off. There was a spray that one could use that had some type of adhesive on it that made it better.

But in LA, during the summer, there was a time also where the tomatos quit setting, but then started again to form some tomatos before it got cold.

HTH

Steve

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Reply to
Steve B

You can improve their chances in a couple of simple ways.

1) If your tomatoes are caged, trellised or staked, grasp the cage, trellis material or stake, and gently shake the plant. This can loosen up clumping pollen and cause it to move around in/on the flower and pollinate. This works best if you do it during cooler early morning temperatures, or cooler evening temperatures, especially shortly after sunrise or shortly before/after sunset. Doing this a couple of times a day really does help improve fruit set. Some people will just reach out and stroke their plants, like they were petting a cat.

I looked at your weather, and, presently, it looks ideal in Houston. So that doesn't seem to be your problem.

2.) If your temperatures are on the borderline of those that allow pollination--max. temp. of about 92 to 95 and min. temp. lower than 75 (but higher than 55), shaking alone may not be enough but you can improve the odds by "cooling" down the pollen and flowers with a brief spray of water from the hose during the hottest part of the day (or night). You don't want to hit the plant with such a hard stream of water that the flowers fall off, obviously, though! Do this at least twice daily when temperatures are right at the threshold of being "too hot" and it can cool the flowers just enough that they will set fruit.
Reply to
Billy

We made some DIY hanging tomato bags out of the nylon mesh shopping bags everyone has nowadays. They have them at all grocery stores and we got ours at Walmart for like 50 cents each, big blue bags, reusable shopping bags. They are not Nylon, not sure what it is called. We bought one of the ten dollar ones and made two more DIY ones. They are technically working fine so far but the tomatoes are slow to start and got VERY windblown last month, probably a little too early to plant. Two are quite stunted as something either gnawed at the stem or the stem got damaged by the wind. The ones that are healthy have blooms but continue to try to grow up bumping into the bottom of the bag. We planted 100 tomato plants in the ground around 3-24 and those are doing better than the ones in the bags. Not sure we will use all the other bags we bought, I had wanted to do Cucumbers, Squash and other Veggies in the bags to keep them off the ground. Not a lot of time to work on that now though. I will post a photo if anyone is interested in seeing them.

Reply to
Garland Grower

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