why hang tomatoes upside down from buckets?

Well, since you asked...

There are several reasons.

For starters, there are no weeds.    

At this point in the sales pitch from the Handyman, I was sold.  No weeds sounds fantastic, doesn't it? 

The downside to that is that you're going to have to hang your buckets somewhere, and somewhere needs to be sturdy enough to hold a bucket of dirt, water, and some big, juicy, tomatoes.  Somewhere will need some extra work to make sure that your tomatoes don't rip a a tiny corner off of your house or tip a post over onto your prized roses. 

So you won't be spending time weeding or mulching, but you're going to have to get out some tools to secure those suckers.

How big a bucket should you use? We use 3 gallon buckets. An autopsy of last years buckets (same size) revealed that the roots barely take up a quarter of the space. I have no idea if you'd be better off going bigger or smaller, but we're digging the size we use.

This year there are TWO plants in each bucket.  The Handyman has all patio princesses, and I've got four princesses, two gardeners delight, a tumbling tom, and a yellow pear. 

 

To be honest, the jury's still out on the princesses.  Those gals aren't the leggy beauties that the others have become.  Their fruit is still mostly green, and the Handyman thinks that maybe they're not for such a northern latitude. (The princess is in the above picture on the right.)

  

Their fruit, though, is much bigger than we expected.  So while there are many more cherries on the others, these princesses are putting out plump, bigger-than-golf-ball-sized tomatoes. 

We'll need 'em big because we've got 36 health kick hybrids in the community garden plots that are struggling to turn red, too, and my little heart is set on some sauce.

Okay, but I digress.  We're talking benefits of hanging your tomatoes.  How about I just list them?

1) No weeds

2) Harvest at chest height; no bending over

3) Increased air flow

4) Fewer critters to climb up and snack on your beauties

5) Makes more space in your garden for other things, especially in raised beds.

The best reason I can give for hanging your tomatoes (or any other vegetable) is that it's fun.  It's gardening up in the air where you usually don't garden.  Hanging veggie buckets make people do a double-take when they stroll by your yard in the evening, expecting to see petunias or osteospermum or lobelia trailing down from up high.

Sorry, but this is where the photo shoot ended. I started eating, and before I knew it, all the red ones were in my belly.  Upside-down or right-side up, they do all taste the same!

Though much of the information in this post has been mentioned in the earlier ones, there are other posts on upside down tomatoes - with different pictures.  There's even a step-by-step of one way to put your buckets together.  Just click the button on the right, and you'll get a list of 'em!  If you've got something hanging in your garden, do comment so everyone can go see your pictures!