Garden Skills

Grow Upside-Down Vegetables in 5-Gallon Buckets

Why grow plants upside down? Why not! You’ll see some interesting plant shapes and never have to weed. The upside-down growing system works best for tomatoes and strawberries but is doable for other plants that naturally trail, such as cucumbers, beans and peas. Peppers and eggplant also do acceptably well with this method.

Tip: Plants instinctively grow upward, and some interesting shapes will occur as they do. Sometimes it helps to gently tie vines or stems in the desired direction or to brace or weight them as necessary to encourage the stems to grow out past the bottom of the container before branching upward. Otherwise, some try to grow up into the bottom of the planter.

Grow upside-down vegetables in 5-gallon buckets.

1 Install a hanging hook for each bucket before you plant, making sure that it will bear the weight of the pot plus soil. (Don’t forget that the soil will be wet!) 2 Cut or drill a hole in the bottom of the bucket for each plant that will go in it. For large plants such as tomatoes, one hole per container, dead center,

1 to 2 inches in diameter, works well. For smaller plants, such as pole beans and peas, use six to eight holes maximum, and for peppers, eggplant and strawberries, three or four is sufficient. The holes need to be large enough that you can fit the transplants through them, either head (foliage) first or feet (roots) first, as well as large enough to accommodate the stem of the plant once it matures.

3 Hang the bucket and thread each plant through a hole either by carefully pushing the root ball from the outside of the planter in or by very gently pulling the leaves through from the inside.

4 Once a seedling is in place, add moistened planting soil, a little at a time, gently pressing it as you go, until the transplant is stable. If you’re putting in more than one plant, add some potting medium around each one to help hold it in place as you put in the others. 5 Continue adding soil to within 2 to 4 inches of the top of the bucket. Water until the excess starts to drain out the bottom.

Excerpted from Storey’s Curious Compendium of Practical and Obscure Skills © by Storey Publishing. Used with permission from Storey Publishing. Adapted from Vertical Vegetables & Fruit: Creative Gardening Techniques for Growing Up in Small Spaces. Illustration © by Kathryn Rathke.