Gardening is very beneficial and a great activity for mental and physical health. It’s a great hobby to adopt. People with limited space can gain benefits from gardening at home. Growing hanging plants is more convenient and usually low-budget to afford and can be done in small areas, such as on balconies.
Tomatoes are best to grow as hanging plants. It is very beneficial to grow hanging tomato plants; Tomatoes are a great source of nutrients, fiber, and vitamins A, C, and K. Tomatoes contain, which is very advantageous to health and decreases heart disease risk.
Hanging Tomato Plants Upside Down
You can grow a vertical garden for your balcony as these hanging tomato plants do not take much space and are easy to handle, and is a great activity for your physical and mental health. Fruits are easy to access and harvest in this method of planting. You can grow your garden as small as one pot. Growing upside-down plants can be a great choice for your homegrown garden.
Also, you can move your plant from one place to another in case the plant is not getting enough sunlight or if the weather is not bearable for the plant. Hanging upside-down tomato plants can be a natural decoration with benefits for your house or apartment, but they need more care than plants grown on the ground or in normal pots.
The tomato plant will not need any support or caging to grow if you choose the plant wisely. It depends on which kind of tomatoes you’re planning to grow for your garden. Growing hanging tomatoes upside down can be more hygienic than the tomatoes grown normally as these do not have any contact with the ground and prevent pests, having a better circulation of air. It is good to use homegrown vegetables in your daily meals because they are more hygienic.
How to Grow Tomato Plants Upside Down?
You may need some extra material to grow hanging tomato upside down than the usual method. You will need a hanging bucket or basket; make sure the container you are using to grow your upside-down planter is durable and strong enough to carry the weight of the plant. Cut a hole of about 1-2 inches of diameter in the bottom of the container you are using to grow hanging upside-down tomatoes.
Add 3/4 amount of soil into your plant container and some of the fertilizer to activate the soil. Take your tomato plant and gently remove the soil and dirt from its roots and try not to damage the plant while removing the soil from the roots. Then carefully plant the roots of the tomato plant through the bottom hole of the container, water the plant, make sure the soil is completely moist. Then hang your plant in a place where your plant can absorb the proper amount of sunlight to get energy and air; you have to water the plant regularly.
Other Ways to Grow a Tomato Plant?
You can buy a sprouted plant from a plant nursery, or you can use tomato seeds or fresh tomatoes to transplant them in your hanging buckets or pots at home.
Using Seeds:
Take the seeds of the tomato plant, then plant them in lightweight plant soil with fertilizer in a container, place the container in a sunny area, and water the plant regularly when the plant starts to grow and reaches about 6-7 inches in length. You can now use the plant to grow your hanging tomato plants.
Using Fresh Fruit:
If you do not have tomato seeds, you can use fresh tomatoes to grow a tomato plant. Cut the slices of tomato fruit into 4-5mm, then plant the slices in the lightweight plant soil with fertilizer, do not plant the tomato slices too deep in the container. After covering the slices of tomato with soil then water it. You will see the results within a week; as the plant grows to 6-7 inches in length, your plant is ready to be transplanted in the hanging container to grow an upside-down plant.
After placing the roots in the soil and fertilizing it, hang your container in your desired place. Make sure that sunlight reaches your plant and covers it properly, and water the soil.
How to Care?
You may have to take more care of these plants than the tomato plants grown with the traditional method. Put them in a place where the sun directly exposes the plant to absorb energy and ripe up fruitfully. Plants grown in this way, such as upside-down hanging tomatoes, need at least 8 hours of direct sunlight. Because plants need energy and heat to grow, sunlight is the main source of energy and heat.
These hanging tomato plants need watering once or twice daily; it depends on the weather. Ensure that you water the plant’s soil until it reaches its roots and the soil gets moist entirely. In the upside-down hanging method soil of the plant dries up quickly because of the constant air circulation in the plant, so you have to water the plant regularly once or twice.
Do not water the plant too much that it gets soggy, and that will reduce the process of photosynthesis, which is the process of growth in plants, and sogginess can cause fungus in the soil. It is important to water the plant correctly; watering it less can damage the plant, or watering it too much is also not healthy for the tomato plant.
Best Hanging Tomato Plants
Even though many varieties of tomatoes can be grown in a home garden, but best to choose for upside-down planting methods are:
Cherry Tomato
Cherry tomatoes are round-shaped, golfed-sized tomatoes, rich in flavor and full of juice. These are usually red in color, but you can find them in yellow, green, purple, and orange color too.
Grape Tomato
These are grape-shaped tomatoes; they are usually grown in small size, these tomatoes are sweet in flavor. Tiny Tim tomato: Tiny Tim is bite-sized tomatoes; they are also sweet in flavor.
Plum Tomatoes
These are egg-shaped tomatoes; they are about 2-3 inches long; this type of tomatoes is mostly used in making sauces.
Tomatoes that grow smaller in size than normal-sized tomatoes are better to choose for upside-down hanging planters because the normal-sized tomatoes are heavier in weight. The plant might not bear the weight of fruits after they ripen up, which may damage the stems of plants and break it.
You will not need any type of support, staking, or caging to grow these smaller varieties of plants because these varieties of tomatoes are lighter in weight.
Disadvantages
Although there are many benefits of this planting method, there could be disadvantages of this method too.
Challenging to Plant
It can be hard to transplant the plant in the bottom of the bucket, basket, or container you have chosen to grow upside-down planter. There are chances that you might damage the roots of plants while transplanting them into the soil. It is because you have to implant it from the bottom of the container; you have to be careful while implanting it Because; in this method of planting, the plant’s roots have to grow from the bottom and hang upside-down.
Need More Care
Tomatoes grown with this method might need more care than the plants which are grown traditionally. As they grow upside down, these tomato plants need proper sunlight for at least 6-8 hours and are watered on time. As these tomato plants grow upside-down, the stems and branches of the plant try to grow towards the sun to get energy, and because of this, the stems and the branches of the plant start to bend upwards, and that can weaken the plant to hold the fruit.
Limited Varieties of Tomatoes
You can only grow certain limited types of tomatoes for this method because if you don’t choose the tomato plant wisely, choosing the plant that grows tomatoes larger in size can damage your plant and its parts. Your hard work and the amount of time you give to it may be get wasted.
