To the uninitiated this sounds crazy but what a great space saving idea! If you live in an apartment you can add your tomato-growing bucket to your other hanging pots and pluck the fruits when they ripen! It’s not just a space saving idea. There are a lot of practical benefits, too.
If you’re wise you will use a commercial potting mix and that will eradicate the problems you would possibly have if you use garden soil. This carries the problem of soil borne bacteria and fungi and these are problems you can immediately eliminate by using a good commercial potting mix. I use one with added water crystals and slow release fertilizer.
In addition, there is the problem of weeding. If you grow your tomatoes upside down, you don’t have to!! What could be easier? Even if you don’t have a green thumb you can grow tomatoes upside down in a bucket and eliminate all the weeding problems you have if you have a backyard plot. Other problems are eliminated, too. You won’t need to stake them as you would if you were growing indeterminate tomatoes in your back yard. The other important factor when growing tomatoes is ventilation. Thus the problems of air borne fungi are minimized when the breeze passes easily through the stems and leaves in your freely swinging bucket.
Tomatoes need 6 to 8 hours of sunshine every day during the growing season and this is the other beauty of growing your tomatoes in a bucket. If they are not getting that in one location it is easy to move them to where they do. If you work and have to be out most of the day work out where the sun shines most and move your tomatoes there.
If you are growing your tomatoes in a bucket you need to be watchful as far as watering goes. During high summer temperatures the soil dries out quickly and you need to keep a watchful eye out for this to happen.
You need to water at least once a day, early in the morning or late in the evening, to minimize evaporation. You may need to water twice a day if it is really hot and the leaves are wilting. The tell-tale symptom of lack of water is leaf wilt. This is easy to spot as the top leaves bend over and curl to minimize transpiration (loss of moisture through the leaves).
There are a few simple procedures to follow and once you have put them together, presto! You have an instant garden which is going to yield you an abundance of juicy, succulent tomatoes!