Do-It-Yourself Upside-Down Garden Pots
If you yearn for the taste of fresh vegetables like tomatoes, you have limited yard space, and you don't have the money for those pricey upside-down tomato pot hangers, then the solution to the problem is to make your own upside-down plant hanger. All you need is a bucket for each plant, a drill, potting soil and a sturdy place to hang the planter. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Hook
- 5-gallon bucket
- Marker
- Hole saw
- Drill
- Utility knife
- Newspaper
- Bricks
- Potting soil
- Fertilizer
Instructions
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1
Choose the place where you want to hang your upside-down planter. The area should have ample sunlight and be strong enough to hold the weight of wet soil. Turn a sturdy hook into a solid structure where you can hook the handle of your bucket.
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2
Turn your clean 5-gallon bucket upside-down, and draw a 2-inch-diameter circle in the middle with a marker.
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3
Attach a hole saw onto your drill and cut out the circle you drew. This cuts the hole round without a lot of trouble. If you don't have a hole saw attachment, cut out the circle with a utility knife.
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4
Lay newspaper, at least five sheets thick, over the bottom of your bucket, covering the entire bottom section. If the newspapers are larger than the bottom, press them up the sides of the pot. The dirt will keep it in place and the newspapers will break down into the soil. The material should allow the water to go through, but keep the dirt inside the bucket.
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Cut a slit in the newspapers over the hole with a utility knife or scissors. Make the slit big enough to push the tomato plant or other plant through the hole without damaging the plant.
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6
Push the top two to three leaves of the tomato plant through the slit, so those leaves and the top part of the stem are on the outside of the bucket and the roots and other leaves are inside the bucket. If you are using the planter for other vegetables, do not plant them any deeper than they were originally growing or they will rot off. Have the bucket resting on a couple of bricks, but do not place the bricks so they are on the plant coming out of the bottom. This helps keep the plant from being squished and you don't have to hold the bucket off the ground while you fill it with soil.
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7
Holding the root section of the plant, fill the planter with potting soil. Try to keep the rootball centered in the planter as you add the potting soil. If you have someone helping you lift the bucket in place, fill it to within 3 inches of the top. Otherwise, only add a little of the soil to hold the plant in place. Hang the bucket up and finish filling it with soil.
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8
Water the planter thoroughly after it is hanging. Keep the soil moist, but not soggy wet. Tomatoes love water, so don't let the soil dry out. If this happens, your tomatoes may suffer from blossom end rot. This is a condition that causes the fruit to ripen prematurely. It starts out as a small black spot on the end of the tomato, but the black spot keeps growing bigger as the fruit grows.
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Feed your tomatoes with a diluted liquid fertilizer every week. Plants growing in planters use up the nutrients in the soil and you need to replace them for proper growth.
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Tips & Warnings
When watered, the soil is extremely heavy. The place you are hanging this planter has to sustain the weight.
Use a bucket that has a metal handle. Plastic handled buckets can break.
Clean your bucket with a solution of 1 tbsp. of bleach and one gallon of water. Wash down the inside of the bucket, then rinse the bucket out with clean water.
