My tomatoes

Here is my 1st experiment into homemade upside down tomatoes. I grew these tomatoes from seeds indoors and let them sit outside a little over 2 weeks to get used to some cool weather before transplanting. We have only gotten to 2 of these so far since that's all the 5 gallon buckets we have at the moment. Next week we should have more. Crossing my fingers!!

We put 4 pieces of newspaper down on the bottom over the hole and filled it with a 3-4" layer of potting soil and then the rest is dirt out of a hill behind our garden. We didn't have anywhere set up yet to hang these so they are on my clothes line.

The hole Mr. Smith drilled is about 2". He cut an X in the newspaper and pushed the seedling into the bucket. It has been raining for the past 2 days, so I think they have enough water!

Mr. Smith hung the tomato plants before I could take a picture of the water/soda bottle in the soil. I am extremely short so I can't even touch the middle of these buckets. HA HA So I took a picture of the rest of bottles I have in my dish drain that we are using for the next round of tomatoes. We are leaving the lids off the buckets because we are growing basil on top, they are an awesome companion plant for tomatoes and promote growth and add to taste :) The point of the water/soda bottles to be in the 5 gallon bucket is to water in small amounts all day. The biggest problem I read about with these upside down plants (whether homemade or store bought) is the soil dries out too quickly. So solution to this is to bury a water/soda bottle into the soil, pour water into the bottle a few times a day(seems to be easiest here right after breakfast, during nap time, and right after dinner)there are a few holes pricked at the bottom to slowly drip water to the tomatoes all day and its less work on me! Which is always a bonus :D We want self sufficiency to be as easy as possible! Work smarter not harder ;)