This is a Novelty thing. as seen on tv, lol ridiculous. yet I tried these out several years - still have them, they are resilient if nothing else.

nothing else is what i reporting.

you can grow them like this, and you will get tomatoes, funny thing is you get more tomatoes with way less effort by growing them the correct way up. even in a 5 gallon bucket is better than this.

it does look interesting though. If you just want some interesting hanging plants then these pot bag things are your boys. Hey! That last sentence gives me an Idea. LOL

Something to keep in mind when you grow in containers, if you fertilize early and often you're much more likely to be successful, especially if you're growing tomatoes or strawberries in a planter. Keep in mind every time you water a plant and the water runs out the bottom, some of the nutrients escape at the same time. Also, if you didn't fertilize before the plant began fruiting you missed the window for ensuring the fruit develop well.

mmmata wrote:Much better deal from their site

2 tomato
2 strawberry

10 bucks

Didnt see shipping but still...

https://www.topsyturvy.com/?MID=820034&gclid=CLz5s6Kt468CFQZ_hwodBEhpBQ

Theres some tomato in your face woot

Well S&H is $7.95 per set, so the cost of the four planters is $25.90. Compare that to woot's 3/$19.97 and woot is still a little cheaper per plant. Since the strawberries are a throw in, the 3/$19.97 price is much better that 2/$25.90.

I've never grown tomatoes in this product. I've always gotten buckets from home depot, cut a hole in them, and planted the tomatoes upside down with some green moss so the water doesn't leak out.

Few things --

1. They're very heavy once filled with soil and tomato plants. I balanced mine between my knees while I filled it up.

2. A tomato plant wants to live really bad. When I was filling mine up, it fell and the stem was crushed. I hung it up anyway because I was already done and didn't have another tomato plant. It was a little unhappy for a while, but eventually grew. By the end of summer, I was getting 3-4 medium sized tomatoes from it each day.

3. They grow to the sky, but eventually flop down. They get over it.

4. They take a lot of water. Mine *needed* water twice a day, once before work and once when I got home. This was in Virginia where it was HOT

5. Bolt the hanger to something really solid. These things are heavy. I hung my tomato plants about six feet up, and by the end of the summer, they were touching the patio.

6. Put the occasional coffee grounds/tea bags/banana peels in the top for feeding.

In short, this is a really great way of growing tomatoes. I was getting a small basket full of grape tomatoes and 3-4 medium sized tomatoes every day.

mmmata wrote:Much better deal from their site

2 tomato
2 strawberry

10 bucks

Didnt see shipping but still...

https://www.topsyturvy.com/?MID=820034&gclid=CLz5s6Kt468CFQZ_hwodBEhpBQ

Theres some tomato in your face woot

No, Woot has a better deal. The Topsy Turvy site wants $10 for 2 sets of 2 planters, plus a S&H charge of $7.95 for each set of two planters, for a total of $25.90 for four planters. Woot is asking $9.99 (with shipping) for two planters, $14.99 (with shipping) for four planters, or $19.99 (with shipping) for six planters.

I used a similar planter a few years ago, but I didn't water it enough. For any sort of hanging basket, you really want a drip irrigation system. Amazon sells drip irrigation systems starting at about $20. You hook them up to your garden faucet.

As for the tomatoes growing upwards, towards the sun, I don't think that's a problem. Tomatoes are actually vines and can grow horizontally or vertically; whatever. Just hang the planters low enough so that you can reach the tomatoes.

I agree I can grow just about anything but even when I bought a more expensive version of this and followed the directions this didn't work.

Review of my own:

These are a hit or a miss when it comes to yielding a lot of tomatoes. Not only has my family tried it, but by Aunt had a few over the years as well. They do work, just not that well.

These are one season only, unless somehow you know how to take care of them. The bags tend to dry rot, so don't expect these to produce tomatoes for years to come.

They were recalled back in 2008 - due to the planters collapsing from the weight. Hope these are those versions!

Boredmaster wrote:...each one gave me at least 6 fully delicious, healthy tomatoes.

Just want to point out that 6 tomato fruits per plant is an abysmally low yield, and not exactly glowing testimony for this product.

We have tried these, and the dirt container is too small, they dry out badly. We have had better results with a 5 gallon bucket with a hole in the bottom. You still have to water them a lot. Cherry tomatoes work great in the bucket. No staking!

wishkonsinin wrote:I agree I can grow just about anything but even when I bought a more expensive version of this and followed the directions this didn't work.

5 gallon bucket!

1st - who would think this could be so controversial? And speaking of....., when they say it grows herbs will it grow any herb?

My better half is growing cherry tomatoes in our small garden and bugs and critters are a problem. When she wakes up going to run this by her.

I have some 40lb fishing line,thinking of doubling it and hang one of these from a big maple tree I have in my backyard. Think it would look cool with a floating tomato plant about 7 feet off the ground as my neighbore walk by and look in my yard.

I've grown cherry tomatoes (and strawberries) in regular hanging baskets and it worked just as well as these did, plus they take up less space and look more attractive hanging on a porch or patio. They were also more manageable if you needed to rotate them or move them to a sunnier spot.

wonder if these will work for other "plants"?

Use them every year. Tomatoes and sizzling hot chili peppers. Does have to be watered daily down here in FL, but far less problems with insect, vermin, etc. devouring types. So here's my contribution. Take your tomatoes, some peppers, a bit of good quality milk chocolate, green peppers, shallots, chuck roast and a Carroll Shelby chili kit and you end up with some really good sheeeet.

If you need plants, local nurseries usually have them cheaper than the big box stores.

At least for NC you have until July to get them in. Check with your local extension office for when is best to plant them. As long as you are past your last frost, earlier is better.

mikelehmann wrote:Your tomatoes will not grow like that, they naturally want to grow toward the sun. Your random, annoying fact for the day....

They WILL grow like that. All you have to do is flip this stupid device over and grow your tomatoes above the soil. Oh and don'f forget to get fake red plastic tomatoes and strategically place them into your plant before taking a picture.

Go buy a 5 gallon bucket and don't waste your money on this

Just my personal experience, of course - but things don't like growing upside-down - period.

FWIW - I had FAR better results with blue lake green beans than I did tomatoes. The tomatoes that seemed to do marginally well were the cherry variety - any variety of "normal" size will:
- try to grow "up"
- get big & heavy
- break its stem
- and die.

Oh - and I hope you like to water EVERY DAY.

I've been growing tomatoes with this for several years... they yield huge quantities of tomatoes. You can also grow most other types of fine vegetables such as cucumbers, squash, and zucchini (just make sure they are smaller varieties).

I only have 2 down sides to these.

1: They require a lot of watering. They dry out almost daily so you need to pay a lot of attention to them

2: They are heavy and need a lot of support. You are not going to be able to hand this from a simple garden hook. The vines will come down a good 6' so you need it to be up high it'll weight in at well over 50 lbs. Mine hang from tree limbs.

I have a friend in an apartment with a balcony who swears by these things. Might have to try one. Are they reusable?

Make your own:

http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/topsy-turvy-tomatoes-672321/

Can't wait to eat myself some nice fresh tomatoes!

I would not recommend purchasing these, (sorry woot!)

I've been gardening most of my life and when I moved into an apartment these seemed like a good idea...until they only ended up producing a total of 2 tomatoes between 2 plants.

Sorry woot!, but this isn't a deal. You can find these all over the place for $2 or less. I guess it isn't terrible if you have to have it delivered to your door.

I have used these for a couple of seasons and they grow moderately well. Freed up some space in my garden for me to experiment with some other veggies.

Who knew this was such a hot topic?

My dad can grow ANYTHING. One year he tried the topsy turvy bag with his other tomatoes. I saw a difference between his regular tomatoes and the upside down ones. They did in fact grow but they were smaller and took just a little bit longer to produce. I will say this tho. The container tomatoes got decimated by damn cut worms. The hanging one was fine. :s

mmmata wrote:Much better deal from their site

2 tomato
2 strawberry

10 bucks

Didnt see shipping but still...

https://www.topsyturvy.com/?MID=820034&gclid=CLz5s6Kt468CFQZ_hwodBEhpBQ

Theres some tomato in your face woot

Well, maybe. The fine print sez:

"OFFER DETAILS:
When ordering today, you will receive the Topsy Turvy® Tomato Planter and the Topsy Turvy® Strawberry Planter for $10 +$7.95 P&H, plus we will include a second Topsy Turvy® Tomato Planter and the Topsy Turvy® Strawberry Planter for FREE, just pay the additional $7.95 P&H."

So, that's $17.95 for two tomato & two strawberry, as opposed to Woot!'s $9.99 for two tomato. Or, $25.90 for four tomato & four strawberry, as opposed to Woot!'s $14.90 for four tomato. Four tomato plants will produce a LOT of tomatoes.

Depends on whether or not ya wanna grow strawberries, I suppose.

How would these work in Australia? Would you end up with right-side-up tomatoes???

@ ChgoOptician, Thx for the info. What you said makes sense. Just ordered 2 sets. I would guess that mixing some kind of water retention material to the soil, like vermiculite or perlite, would help. I think these are natural elements. It would also maybe make it weigh less. I also wonder if they are reusable. We'll see. Happy growing.

In my experience, these aren't worth the hassle. I had one last year and also planted a regular garden of tomatoes. The topsy one grew slower and the tomatoes took a long time to grow as well. They tended to stay small even though I was using standard tomato seeds of some variety. I was using miracle grow too. In comparison, my tomatoes on my small planting bed grow to be over waist high and needed supports to hold them up. (We had cucumbers over a foot long) and the tomatoes were huge. No joke. Even if you can only plant a 4x4 planting bed, it's much better than these. Even miracle grow couldn't get the tomatoes to mature on the topsy planter.

Not impressed with this product, used for the last 2 years and have seen only hassle, and small tomatoes, and wasted space.

I live in the country, grow tomatoes every year. I tried these before as I thought they would look nice hanging on the deck and so-on.

They are VERY heavy. So much that one of them got worn from blowing in the wind while hanging and split, bringing a mature plant and dirt to the deck.

The others did ok, but you have to water them a lot and the yield wasn't all that. If you live somewhere you can't plant you are better off with a big pot.

As to the comments about not working because plants grow to the sun, that's crap. The leaves will curl up a bit. Tomato plants don't make it on their own in the ground either, you have to stake them or grow them in a cage. This is a work around for that as they just hang, but in my opinion not worth the trouble. But if you never tried one before it's good for novelty. Might work better with a smaller plant.

You can also make these yourself with 5 gallon buckets. Cut a 2" hole in the center of the bottom of the bucket (make sure its a bucket with a handle!). Then buy a tomato seedling thats about 8".

Wrap the seedling roots in a coffee filter (helps get them settled). Hang the bucket, drop in the plant through the hole, then fill with soil!

The buckets arent as pretty as the turveys, but they also won't break after 6 months like these will.

I own two of these exact brand. I stopped using them after the first year. First, you need to hang them up high (at least 5 feet up) in a place where there is not much wind and a lot of sun. Second, the soil in these drys out FAST, especially after your tomato plants start really rooting out. If you hang them up high, it's really difficult to water them correctly and the water runs out fairly quickly -- even with the correctly placed little sponge they include for the bottom hole, you get a lot of water loss. Good buy if you have no garden space, and if you're OK with constantly watering the plants and fertilizing/liming them (the constant watering will deplete the soil). I just didn't have the patience. I successfully water in-ground tomato plants at most with every-other-day watering, but these will require twice a day watering in the middle of summer.

kiltedbear wrote:In my experience, these aren't worth the hassle. I had one last year and also planted a regular garden of tomatoes. The topsy one grew slower and the tomatoes took a long time to grow as well. They tended to stay small even though I was using standard tomato seeds of some variety. I was using miracle grow too. In comparison, my tomatoes on my small planting bed grow to be over waist high and needed supports to hold them up. (We had cucumbers over a foot long) and the tomatoes were huge. No joke. Even if you can only plant a 4x4 planting bed, it's much better than these. Even miracle grow couldn't get the tomatoes to mature on the topsy planter.

Same experience I had -- I think part of the problem is the water issue.

lichme wrote:I have a friend in an apartment with a balcony who swears by these things. Might have to try one. Are they reusable?

Yes, if you're careful with them throughout the season. The sponge at the bottom hole might get a little grungy but you can make your own. Mine lasted through a season and were ready for a new one but I didn't use them again.

Pufferfishy wrote:Just my personal experience, of course - but things don't like growing upside-down - period.

FWIW - I had FAR better results with blue lake green beans than I did tomatoes. The tomatoes that seemed to do marginally well were the cherry variety - any variety of "normal" size will:
- try to grow "up"
- get big & heavy
- break its stem
- and die.

Oh - and I hope you like to water EVERY DAY.

Green beans are probably a good idea -- they're not super-water-hungry like tomatos. I might try that with my leftover containers.

Yea, and I had to water twice a day, morning and then evening.... we get hot down here.

I bought the pepper version of this thing, along with several healthy young plants to put in it. I read the instructions and followed them exactly. The plants were dead within a week. The three extra plants I bought, which went into a regular planter with the same soil and fertilizer mix and were situated not five feet from where the hanging monstrosity was, have thrived - so much so that I've had to move them into large individual pots.

I have no doubt the tomato monstrosity is just as bad as the pepper monstrosity.

I tried their tomato and strawberry hangers a couple of summers ago. Got about six strawberries and ONE puny tomato. At the same time I planted another half dozen of the same variety of tomato in the traditional planter and cage setup with OUTSTANDING results (I didn't do any planter- or ground-based strawberries). My gardening experience is limited but I did all of it under the tutelage of my wife who has a lot of experience with flowers and some with edibles. Neither one of us could figure out what went wrong. I did use potting soil and attempted to follow the directions closely.

Long story short, I can't endorse these. My guess is that setting them up correctly and getting the plants acclimated to their environment is a touchy task at best.

I think this is a neat idea, but in the past when I've grown tomatoes in containers, they had a good flavor but are very small with really think skins.

I have a friend who has used these several times and says that she gets a TON of juicy, delicious tomatoes. I'm hoping I have the same luck!