upside down

For Father's Day, I bought Shane an upside-down tomato planter. He loves loves loves grape tomatoes, and I thought it would be a fun gift, plus we'd have our first "garden." Well, the truth is, I had hinted I wanted one for Mother's Day, and then afterward he told me he had thought about getting me one for Mother's Day (why didn't you!?!) but he hadn't realized I had hinted. Ah well. If you want something done, do it yourself, right? So I bought him one.

But, despite the terrific gift idea, I was extremely irritated. Why?

I had to make not one, but two return trips to the store.

First, the upside-down tomato planter kit doesn't include a tomato plant. How was I supposed to know?! I'm not brilliant when it comes to gardening. (In fact I perhaps should disclose that all of our house plants die.) I thought maybe there was a teeny compact seedling thing included, but no. We were all excited to put it together on Father's Day, but we had no plant. OK.

Second, I needed way more soil than I had on hand. How was I supposed so know how much that upside-down tomato planter would hold? It holds a lot.

I'm irritated because I totally think they should put in bold letters on the box, "All you need to get your upside-down tomato plant going is this kit, a tomato plant, and xx-lbs of top soil." They really need to say that.

Of course, the more I spend on this plant, the more I wonder if it's "worth it," so my running tally is:

• $9.99 - upside down tomato planter
• $0.99 - tomato plant
• $5.99 - upside down tomato plant fertilizer (I got suckered into the marketing at the store)
• $2.99 - big bag of potting soil (is that even the right kind? I was in a hurry. I just bought something that looked like dirt... hmm look, it's for African Violets! Yeah I'm an idiot.)

So, I've in essence doubled my investment.

Plus, the timing wasn't perfect. They say you need to plant tomatoes by the end of June for it to be worth it. We went away for 4th of July and planted them as soon as we got home. Here is our sad little tomato plant the day it was ready to go:



Shane made serious fun of me for the tomato plant. He said I got the worst one in the store. I didn't think it looked that bad, but again, let me mention again, I don't know much about plants.

Another big challenge was that this is a hanging planter, right? Well, we live in a condo. The obvious solution is to screw a thing into our balcony ceiling and hang our planter. Well... that is against our condo's House Rules. We're not allowed to "breach the building envelope" or something like that, because moisture can get in there and rot and then the Association has to deal with it. Therefore, any hole in a "limited common element" (like our balcony) is against the rules. And seeing as how I am president (oh glory!) of the Condo Association, I really felt like we shouldn't break the rules.

The planter hung off our decommissioned bicycle handles for awhile (pictured above). Then the tomato plant started growing upwards... so weird. It was like it knew there was a floor there.

Then Shane came to the rescue. He bought some stuff at Home Depot and engineered (aka jimmy rigged) a hanging rung for me, without screwing anything into the balcony. That Shane is a keeper!! (I must note, this adds another $10 or $15 to the running tally though... sigh.)


Here is our bad boy tomato plant today:


Um, wow. It has grown into a crazy monster. It's too bad you can't see it really well, because of all the greenery behind it. But seriously, comparing that "then" and "now" photo is really wild. I'm proud of myself; I've remembered to water it every day. And, if you look really closely, you'll see two of these (bottom left corner)....


Itty bitty green tomatoes. I hope they turn red before the weather turns cold. I'll be more prepared next year.