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For the past 2 years I have been growing tomatoes in those fugly Topsy Turvy planters. Sure they are ugly, but I don’t have a lot of space and I love a lot of tomatoes and they actually do grow great tomatoes. Last year I hung three on the southwest corner of my garage and no one even noticed the crappy green ivy design because of all the cherry and grape toms dangling from below. There were a few factors that made it a success for me and I’ve listed that all here.
This year I decided to try a strawberry planter because let’s face it, who wouldn’t want delicious fresh strawberries growing off their garage? I had a bunch of strawberry runners over at my community garden plot and I found this handy “Flower Tower” at Value Village for few bucks. You can buy Topsy Turvey ones with the same general idea, or I can assume that cutting some holes in a bucket would really yield the same results. I filled the planter with garden soil, tucked in the runners, and voila – a hanging strawberry planter.
For now the biggest challenge has been to water it without the soil running through the holes. But as it compacts a little, it seems to be holding better. I’ve got about 36 plants in there so lets hope for a good harvest. If this works it may be the only way I grow strawberries again! Here are a few hanging container products if you want to start your own:
I am growing strawberries in a topsy-turvy and they are producing fruit after 2 weeks or so. The plants already had flowers on them when I bought them. They look healthy and have many berries growing, but the berries I picked (two so far)that looked ripe were bitter. Did I not wait long enough? Also, I hear about runners, but don’t know exactly what to do with them. Are they the shoots that are growing from the mother plant, but not producing any flowers? Also, if I am correct in my assessment of what runners are, how do I prune them on the bag, (i.e. what is enough and what is too much pruning?) Thank you.
Hi Randy, yes, leave the berries for a little longer to get sweet. Make sure the planter bag is in a sunny place as the sun ripens them best – turn it every once and a while so the ones at the back get sun too.
The runners are how the plant propagates. You can leave them on the plant and they may just flower and grow hanging berries or snip them off and plant them somewhere else that you want strawberries to grow. I’m not sure where you live but at this time of year, june bearing strawberries are finished, but the everbearing still give off a few berriers here and there.