Upside Down Tomato Growing Rack

Upside Down Tomato Growing Rack FARM HOME Food 30-5-44 Al Martin of Sidney, Ark., read a recent story in FARM SHOW about growing tomatoes upside down in 5-gal. buckets. He took the idea one step farther, building a 12-ft. high metal rack with several 5-gal. buckets on it. Tomatoes grow out the bottom and peppers grow out the top. "It lets me maximize use of our available growing space," says Martin, who tried the idea for the first time this past summer. "I don't have a lot of space so if I grew tomatoes on the ground our goats would just eat them up. And as long as I was planting them this way, I didn't want to waste the soil on top of the bucket." He cuts a 2-in. dia. hole in the bottom of each bucket. Soil is added, along with some straw on top that serves as a mulch to hold water. The seedling grows out of the hole and the tomatoes that hang down are easy to pick. The buckets fit inside old wheel rims, which can be slid back and forth on the rack. He fills each bucket with a mix of manure, dirt and peat moss. "I mix up a gallon of Miracle Gro every week, climb the ladder, and pour a gallon into each bucket," says Martin. At other times he can water the plants right from the ground, thanks to a "watering can" that he built out of a 12-ft. length of conduit. He bent the conduit into a U shape at the top and mounted a shower head on it. The bottom end of the conduit connects to an ordinary garden hose. "I simply hang the shower head over each bucket. The soil is about 4 in. below the top of the bucket, so when water starts spilling over the top I know that's enough," notes Martin. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Al Martin, Rt. 1, Box 114A, Sidney, Ark. 72577 (ph 870 368-5540 or cell ph 870 373-1149; cen92903@centurytel.net).

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