DIY: Upside Down Planters

About 5 years ago I learned that tomatoes could be grown upside down and it changed my life.  I was living in Brooklyn, NY at the time and being able to have a mini vegetable garden on my fire escape temporarily satisfied my cravings to move to the country.

Fast forward a few years and here I am with my very own yard!  The possibilities are so overwhelming that I'm finding myself sometimes frozen when it comes to making garden and landscaping decisions.

I should also point out that I don't exactly have 400 acres of land to till.  We're talking a small plot of land in the center of town with a mega layer of rock about 6 inches down. So, I'm finding myself revisiting the upside down garden.

Resources

•  New York Times article Growing Vegetables Upside Down
•  The Cheap Vegetable Gardener - How to Make Upside Down Planter in Your Garden
  
•  The Cheap Vegetable Gardener - 1 Gallon Milk Carton Upside Down Tomato Planter
  

• 14dollarz on YouTube has an amazing collection of videos all about upside down gardens.

I've done it in the past years using plastic pots that you can buy at any garden store.  Recently I was reading Design*Sponge and saw Kate's project for making your own pots from various containers you have in your recyling bin and I thought that was brilliant.  You can find instructions on how to create your upside down hanging planter all over the internet, but Kate laid out a great tutorial that looks cute.

July 2010