Felknor Ventures 82506 Topsy Turvy Upside-Down Tomato Planter

Had great results with both cherry and regular tomatoes last year, so going to only go upside down this year.

If you're thinking at all about buying this product, I strongly suggest you don't. I thought I would give it a try. Not having to stake my plants sounded great. Next year, I'm going back to planting my tomatoes right side up.

The planter itself is kind of a spendy investment. Especially if you plan to have more that just one plant. If you're like me and don't have the option of hanging them on your house or from your porch, you also have to invest in shepherds hooks. But the planters were so heavy that I ended up having to sandwhich the hooks between a couple fence posts to keep them from bending. Then I also had to buy bricks to try to keep them from coming out of the ground. And the first stiff breeze (or squirrel) that comes along, downs the whole thing, breaking the plants off at the base. Which means having to start over again with all new plants. In the end, I ended up investing a lot more money than I had ever intended.

Supposedly this planter helps you get bigger plants with higher yields. That is not the case. What plants I had that survived, looked terrible and produced little. Some never bore fruit at all. I think part of the problem is that they dry out too fast. The sun may warm the soil (which supposedly helps that plants grow better,) but all the moisture evaporates and escapes through the big opening in the top. The soil inside bakes into a nice brick. Which doesn't help the plant to grow.

The package says that you can use the Topsy Turvys for multiple years. Not so! They were so deteriorated at the end of the season, that when I went to pull them down, my fingers went right through the sides. All that money for 3 months.

Skip the Topsy-Turvy. They are too much cost for too little benefit. Buy a pot, a cage, and a spool of twine. Then use the money you save to take your family to the movies.

Like other reviewers have said, you can make a better one out of one of those reusable grocery bags. There is a reason the new upside down planters have openings on the sides. The water drains down the plant causing rot. The cables and hardware rusted. The green printed bag faded in the sun.

We planted 3 tomato plants and got 4 cherry tomatos from one of them. The planter itself completely disintergrated before the season was through. I won't even bother to plant the strawberries in the "free" hanging planter. This was a horrible investment. Also it needs to be watered very often. Certainly didn't work for us as advertised.

I purchased this as a gift for my mother, and she is very pleased with it (so far). I am planning on purchasing one for myself very soon.

This is little more than a novelty item. I bought two and really wanted to like the product. I followed all the instructions, growing tomatoes in one and bell peppers in the other. I'm a space starved vegetable gardener, and really hoped that this product would help me out, but it just never delivered.

The tomatoes (and there weren't many) were all runts, meanwhile the same variety of tomato is growing 20 feet away in the ground surrounded by a conventional cage and I'm getting dozens of huge tomatoes. Same thing with the peppers. I live in Southern California, and used these over the summer. I spent most of my time dumping copious amounts of water and it still dried out too fast. There may be other vegetables that do grow in this thing but I did not have a good experience and threw them away a month or so ago. A shame.

I actually have not used this product yet but have family/friends who have. They all say it is a great product that grows plants exactly as it says. I am looking forward to using this product in the spring to grow tomatoes.

I own several of the Topsy Turvy planters and I would not buy them again. I am glad I bought them on clearance from a QVC outlet and didn't pay the price that they originally cost. I have followed the directions religiously, tried pampering the plants and ignoring the plants and everything in between and have had mediocre results at best. The only plants that really did well in these were a single cherry tomato plant and a rosemary plant. I tried peppers, squash, tomatoes, herbs of various sorts and a couple others and all the results were the same. Just not worth the price to get a few cherry tomatoes and herbs. And I do mean a few. Also, loading the potting soil into this bag makes it very heavy so you better have some help or a pulley system to hang it once it is loaded. I sure wish it had worked out!

I thought it was a hassle to plant the tomato plant in this planter without breaking the plant and spilling lots of soil. I was surprised how heavy this planter was when filled with plant and dirt because it's not a very big planter. The weight, however, was so heavy that it would not hang on a normal shepherds hook, so I had to hang it from a heavy hook in the joist beam on the eave. This made it so difficult to water, because it was out of reach. When I watered it, all the water drained out of the planter immediatly. The planter did keep the tomatoes up off the ground, but they were still accessible to birds and flying insects. I watered and fed the plants but they stayed scrawny and I did not get many tomatoes. Every topsy turvy planter in this town that I saw looked as bad as mine, so I didn't feel so badly. My tomatoes in the past have done much better when I planted them in large pots or raised beds than when I used this topsy turvy.

This item sounded like the answer to our prayers. We have a Samoyed who likes to dig in pots. The plants grew well, but seemed confused, they kept trying to go up. We had to water a lot and got very little crop. Back to pots for us!!

I live in a townhouse with a small backyard in Northern Virginia. With two dogs who use the yard it would have been almost impossible to grow a veggie garden. So, I decided to try the topsy turvy and I hung two from my north-facing deck which got direct sun for half of the day. The tomatoes grew like wild fire - they grew straight down and then curved up. It grew about a dozen large tomatoes - not a lot but good enough. The tomatoes needed to be watered very often, almost every day, in the very hot months of the summer. However, the green peppers in the other one didn't need as much water. That plant grew down just a bit and then darted up and grew many mid-sized green peppers all summer. I don't think I will try tomatoes again due to the lack of fruit and the amount of water it needed. I will definitely do peppers again. The bags are definitely heavy when filled with dirt and even heavier after watered. Squirrels got into one of them and chewed around the cover but I never noticed any bugs or insects on the plants. For me, these worked so well for me and I can't wait to use them again next year.

The planter works very well for growing tomatoes. I used the this and a regular pot for comparison and the seedlings in the topsy turvy grew faster and much bigger.
Watering can be a little difficult, and the cables provided for hanging have all started to rust.

Yes, we purchased two this past summer and got a late start but
still here in Washington State by September had red tomatos to eat
and STILL blooming. We now have a green house so in October we
moved both into the greenhouse and just been cutting off the old
vines and ones that did get mildew but still eating. The tomatos
ripen excellent onced picked and taken inside. I just put into a
basket in they ripen. But when they turn more white then green and
get a star on the bottoms they make for excellent fried green tomatos!
Yes, I am buying more and using outside and in my greenhouse again
next year. :)

First planting tomatoes looked good for ca 2weeks then colapsed and died.When i dumped the soil the ring holding plant was bright gold. I felt this might be an extruding oil. I soaked the product in soapy water for 1 hr rinsed well and replanted. My tomatoes are doing great.Please ask the maker to try growing tomatoes in product as sold.Felknor Ventures 82506 Topsy Turvy Upside-Down Tomato Planter

Bought this for a gift, and totally regret it. great idea to grow veggies upside down when you open the box its a surprise. A plastic bag, metal brackets a sponge and that's it. Thought there would be at least the tomato seeds in there or something to start out growing but there isn't You can really make your own from stuff at home depot and would still be cheaper.

I have not been able to plant it yet, but it is what I had expected. Will work a lot better than the bucket I tried to use this summer

I love this product! Plants grow well and produce is so easy to pick. I find the bugs don't get on the plants like in a garden! Would buy again! Well worth the money!

I actually had good luck growing things in these. They shredded after only one season of use. My green peppers, tomatoes and zukes were great. The whole thing depends are proper watering. I have to get a refund at Home Depot because they don't have them anymore. They can't hold up in the Florida sun. I found that my Earthbox was a better idea.

I really enjoyed this product as seemed the best yet. By hanging upside down, the bugs didn't get into it at all. And there were so many tomatoes!! I think more than being planted in the ground. Great idea!!!

Best tomato plant I've had in years... large, strong and covered with tomatoes. At one point, we had more than we could eat on only one plant. Needs to be watered daily, but well worth it! Would prefer that it looked nicer... the green bag stands out, maybe a bag printed to look like wood slats or basket weave would be nice!

I liked the idea of making your own, but I'm not sure the cloth bags with cloth straps would hold for very long. I live near Great Falls/Malmstrom AFB, Montana and the winds are strong. The wire cords have the strength needed. Also, when the weather turned cold in early October, I was able to move my heavy Topsy Turvy loaded with green tomatoes to my basement. It's mid-October and I'm still ripening tomatoes I'd have lost on the first freeze.

I bought two of these last spring and planted my tomato plants as instructed. I kept a hose nearby just for the purpose of watering these very thirsty planters. Neither plant yielded much of a crop. When I went to take the planters down after the season I discovered that both planters had begun to decompose after only one season's use! What a waste of money, since I didn't even get a great crop from them. I am going to make my own from some 5 gal buckets. Now that will hold up.

I purchased 6 of these and they all fell apart about 2 months into the season. The plastic bags just began to split and tear, leaving gaping holes where the water washed out the potting soil, thus no way to water, and NO tomatoes. They ended up in complete tatters. I am considering hanging them out on my front lawn along our busy street to let all potential customers view the truth about the quality of this product. Needless to say, I am very disappointed. I wanted to rate it Zero stars but it wouldn't let me...

Yes, I paid full price for this item. Utilized name brand potting soil. Instructions indicated water with 1 gallon of water once a week. This wasn't enough for the tomato plant as it would totally wilt. Started watering more frequently. I managed to get 2 tomatoes from it. They were VERY small for the type of tomato plant. I had other plants in the garden which I got MUCH larger tomatoes from. Definitely will not use again. As another viewer stated, it would be simple to make your own and be much less expensive.

I want to state up-front that I have never attempted to grow anything before I purchased the Topsy Turvy. I've never owned any kind of a plant, and I've never tended a garden in any way. I saw the ads for this, and was intrigued to give it a go.

I live in a top-floor apartment that receives a generous amount of sun in the morning. I set up the planter on May 8, 2009, and documented progress of the plant over the course of it's life (I pulled and discarded the plant on September 27, 2009, after most of the leaves had turned brown). I fed the planter early on, and watered it approximately every other day.

By late July, I was seeing tomatoes begin to appear. Many tomatoes bloomed over the summer, but none of the healthy ones were larger than a golf ball. Many had to be discarded due to bottom rot. I don't know if this is a result of my lack of gardening experience, or just what can be expected by growing a food plant under these conditions.

I was pleased enough with the results to try the Topsy Turvy again in 2010, although I plan to grow jalapenos, rather than tomatoes.

If you'd like to try your hand at gardening, and have limited space to do so, I would recommend this product. However, be warned that you might have results comparable to my own.

I was not happy with this product. I found it hard to plant and even harder to water. My tomato plants in regular pots might not need watering because they had gotten enough from the rain, but the plant in the Topsy Turvy container couldn't get watered from the rain due to the small hole at the top of the container. It was very hard to check to see if it needed watering. The dirt was to far down inside the container and the hole at the top, to small to get my hand down in there to see if the dirt was dry. Despite my best efforts I got absolute NO tomatoes, not even blooms to grown on the plant in the Topsy Turvy Upside-Down Tomato Planter. A very big disappointment.

I bought this with great expectations, and it ended up in the trash. My husband told me not to buy it and I should have listened. He planted his tomatoes in the ground, and I planted one in the Topsy. I followed all of the instructions exactly. His plants did beautifully. Mine did not fare well at all. I even tried moving it to different locations. I certainly would not recommend this product.

These things are a waste of money. my mom used these to grow cherry tomatoes regular tomatoes green peppers and cucumbers. well the only thing that produced the most was the cherry tomatoes sense she put 2 in the planter. The regular tomatoes produced maybe 5 at the most and some are falling off. The green peppers 1 grew early and only now are the rest growing. the cucumbers did not do well. only 2 grew full size the others did not get to full size. The plants want to grow upwards toward the sun like there supposed to. we will only use these again for cherry tomatoes. the rest will be planted in the ground like your supposed too.

I purchased 4 of these tomato planters because I wanted to grow my own tomatoes for the first time. This item is great if you buy it from ANYBODY but the original website. The fees will eat you alive!

This planter gets extremely heavy once you fill it with soil and water. Since tomatoes need a lot of sunshine, be ready to water this plant at least once daily. If you don't water this item on a daily basis, your plant will dry very quick.

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Not a bad product. I would put in a sunny spot . I didn't have much luck with it hanging from my porch.

First time with "Topsy Turvy". Found that they need to be watered a lot, just lift them up to feel how heavy they are. Also added 1 tablespoon per gallon of water of EPSOM SALTS when the leaves were starting to turn yellow. Seems to help absorb nutrients when they are watered a lot. Also depends what variety of tomato, I had good luck with Early Girl and Roma, not so good with Brandywine heirloom. Green Bell peppers grew funny shape, but great flavor. Used them for cucumbers worked well also. As for plants damping off? had 2 I had to restart, one had a tiny root ball and I stuck in in a regular pot. It did as well as the ROMA in the hanging planter .

Received this in August. Followed directions, and within 3 weeks had 8 tomatoes growing from one plant. I checked on the plant daily, but today went out to water it and noticed half the leaves were gone, and half the tomatoes. I found a giant tobacco hornworm with it's mouth already half way through one of the biggest tomatoes on the plant. This 4 inch creature managed to eat through almost the whole plant within 12 hours. I thought that this product, because it hung upside down and away from the usual suspects, would be free from these critters. How this worm made it up onto a hanging planter, hanging off an awning in the back yard 6 feet off the ground is beyond me.

HERE is the truth. i read a bunch of these reviews and i am convinced many are fake reviews posted by topsy turdy to help sell the product.
the topsy turdy is a piece of junk. the planter weighs about 70#s when filled with dirt and tomato, so it is very difficult to hang, bending most anything it is attatched to. the planter does not hold enough soil to produce a healthy tomato but it will grow for a while and it will produce some pathetic fruit. the tomatoes will either be sickly and small or just small and worthless. god did not create tomatoes to grow upside down. this upside down method puts stress on the plant which damages the vines and in return the plant produces small pathetic tomatoes, because that is all the vine can support. this review is based on myself and 2 friends who have been RIPPED OFF BY TOPSY TURDY. my friends and i followed the instructions completly. my plant produced what looked like cherry tomatoes that all suffered from blossom rot(brown bottom). plant 2 produced small tomatoes with blossom rot (my friend was so discusted that she ripped the plant from the pathetic planter and put it in the ground (where god intended) and has some fruit. planter 3 is on a deck and has 3 small tomatoes that have never rippened AND IT IS SEPTEMBER. all plants were planted in april and have been watered and fertilized. we are all members of a garden club.
IN CLOSING JUST BUY TOMATOES FROM FARMERS MARKETS AND ENJOY THE TASTE OF A REAL TOMATO.

Had to take the pepper plant out of the planter it was not growing. As soon as I place the plant right side up in a pot it triple in size in three weeks. I will be up to my storage bags in peppers. I'll will try again next year with tomatos.

Okay, I liked the novelty of hanging 2 bags off my balcony. I don't like tomatoes and the ad seemed to say you can use for other vegetables. So I planted a green pepper plant and a cucumber vine. The cucumber vine would get a bunch of flowers, then the tiny little cucumbers, but they'd shrivel. Finally I got ONE 6" cucumber before I noticed that the stem that goes through the hole and is surrounded by the piece of foam rubber was rotting. Too much water is held in that foam rubber. I had one small and one tiny green pepper before the stem starting rotting also.

I'll try again next year, but grow the plants out the top instead of the bottom. That way, the stems can't rot.

Definitely NOT worth the money spent. With plants, soil, and planters I figured my small crop came to $15 a piece for a cucumber and 2 small peppers.

Save your money...either use a regular container, or plant outside in the real ground if you have the space.

Its August, topy turvy is all leaf and no tomatoes. Its heavy and requires constant watering. I should have known better to buy anything advertised on TV but after all I did buy it from Amazon. Well, off to the farm market to get some real tomatoes at $2 a lb.

My mother brought home a Topsy Turvy and I rolled my eyes. We planted a Tomato as per directions with high hopes. The only tomatoes that grew were the two that were already on the plant when we bought it. The plant did horribly, the blooms died, and the tomatoes that grew were tiny. We have since taken the plant out of the Topsy Turvy and put it into a pot and it is now happy with several new tomatoes growing. There was no comparison to a plant of the same variety we planted in the ground near it. It grew healthy and tall with many blooms and tomatoes growing. I could not in good conscience recommend this product to anyone.

I bought 2 to see how well it worked. I'm about halfway into the tomato season and the plants in the Topsy Turvy are about a 1/3 the size of the tomato plants that were planted in the ground. All the plants were from the same batch, planted the same day, and in the same location. It seems to dry out very quickly. Next year I'll try some different types of plants and see if I get better results.

I was disappointed in this product. I would not buy it again. I had a hard time getting the tomato plant into one of my Topsy Turvy and one actually died. Take into consideration you have to hang it on a very sturdy support since it is very heavy. I have it just low enough so I can water it but it is growing pretty far down. Seems just about the height of a deer! Hmm not a good idea.

I planted mine 3 noths ago, water every day, fertilize and take care of it, have not got one tomato, But all the ones I planted in the ground are doing wonderful. If you can get tomato's from the ground dont buy this. If it aint broke then dont fix it.

As has been mentioned by many others, this product is a waste of money. The collar will cut through the stems of plants, result...dead plants.
The sun will heat up the soil in the bag, result....dead plants.
The plants will become root bound (if they survive) in the small bag, result...no tomatoes.
There is no way to keep this thing properly watered.
I tried them for 2 summers for tomatoes, the few tomatoes that survived had Blossom End Rot (BER), and production was lousy.
I gave mine away on Freecycle, and purchased some Earthboxes. MUCH better!!

My parents have two of these and I have one. I think we followed the instructions and I know we kept them watered, but all the plants died. The leaves started turning brown, the necrosis worked it's way to the stems and they just shriveled up and died. Not sure what the problem was, but it didn't work for us.

I was really excited when I got my topsy turvy(I have 3 of them). The thought of growing wonderful tomatoes without cages and getting more... First, the idea of not having to cage them is wonderful and true - you do not need a cage and you don't have to worry about the bugs.
However... I was taken back right away when the directions said that they do better with 2 plants in one planter (well of course it would but what's the point).
As far as getting bigger, healthier plants, I don't see it. Mine seem rather scrawny with very few tomatoes on them. It is true that they are not affected by bugs or rotten spots but at best I am getting 1/2 of what I usually get. I'll stick to growing them on the ground.

The images on TV and in the magazines and catalogs of this thing show bushels of huge, red tomatoes hanging from a plant that's about 5 feet long. Reality, at least for me, is nothing like that. I bought 2 of the planters, good planting soil, and tomato plants for a total of around $30, a good investment if you're expecting a summer of fresh, home grown tomatoes. I first found that just because it rained, didn't mean the tomatoes got enough water, and even one day without watering made them shrivel up and look dead. So, I got creative and began freezing plastic Perrier bottles full of tap water and sticking those into the openings. It works, but here in the South, with our heat, I have to change them around noon to fresh ice; I feel as if I'm raising puppies. Anyway, even though the plants livened up a bit, the tomatoes ranged in size (I kid you not) from marble size to small golf balls. On my blog, I posted a photo of one of my red, ripe tomatoes beside a penny, and the penny is a little larger. Hubby thought maybe it was the wrong kind of plants, so Sunday we ripped out the old ones and planted new ones, here in late July, so if they do produce any tomatoes (which I'm doubting) it will be September. Sorry I invested in these planters, wouldn't recommend them to anyone, but the makers sure have made a mint off of them.

I got ripe tomatoes off my topsyturvy planter a full 2 weeks earlier than from my raised bed garden. But they aren't the most vigorous plants. In my experience, you'll get ripe fruit sooner but you won't get a lot of fruit from them. Sure is nice to be the first to brag about having a bacon and tomato sandwich!

Okay, so like others have said it retains the moisture pretty well, I live in Arizona but do not, and I repeat do not over water. Why because it then drips moisture right onto the plant itself which in my case caused bacterial speck. The plant grows well but it's rotting at the same time due to the fungus now on my plants. In addition if it is really windy your plant may snap in half like my did since it tends to grow up instead of down like shown on the tv commercials. So the stem is being bent in an unnatural "U" shaped and thus was snapped in half during some winds (that weren't all that strong). I came home to a broken plant but luckily was able to duct tape part of it back and its now still growing. These are good and fun to watch and easy to setup but you need to be more attentive I believe than if you just planted it normally in a pot.

Yah I mean, it seems perfect and convenient, but realistically it takes way too much effort to water this thing AND have it indoors. It claims to be impossible to over-water it, but that is because there area a bunch of holes in the bottom through which water drains. Sounds great if you are outdoors, right? Well, I bought this because I don't have a yard or outdoor space of any kind. Whenever you water it (even if a small amount) it drips for several hours afterwards. I had to place a big bowl underneath every time I watered it. What kind of convenience is that? I think it's just as convenient to grow something conventionally and place some stakes in the pot or something.

Works Really well. We have a small patio and rather than clutter it up with a large potted plant we decided to try the Topsy Turvy. It is Great, no weeding and the partially enclosed top means you don't need to water as often..

Let me start by saying I definitely have a brown thumb, in fact, my husband says I cannot grow mold on old bread. However, I purchased the topsy turvey tree (the one with three holes around the side of the bag and the stand) and I am being overrun with tomatoes. It is set up on my deck and despite some pretty severe storms and wind it has stood solid as the Rock of Gibralter. The plants get a good 10hrs of direct sunlight a day. I put grape tomato seedlings in one hole, big boys in another, and romas in the third. Apparently grape tomatoes come on early because I have been enjoying them since the third week of June. The big boys and romas are abundant but not yet getting red. I give them two gallons of water in the morning and two at night...unless it rains. My thinking is that the plants don't get any water from the ground (just what I give them) and the sun evaporates any "excess" water during the day. I have designated Friday as "fertilizer Friday" so I don't forget to give them their MiracleGro regularly. As an inexperienced gardener who did this as a grand experiment I am thrilled to death to be enjoying my unexpected harvest. Maybe sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

I purchased this product from customer and found out Home Depot sells the same product for 7.99 without shipping.