Growing in pots or buckets with lids

[SpicyCurry]

People complain about rain messing up their tomatoes, but I haven’t seen many methods for keeping the rain away.

I thought about trying to train the vines around an elevated tarp or umbrella. It wouldn’t be too hard to secure a tarp to my T-posts.

I thought about mounding up the potting mix around the potted tomato plant, and then putting down and securing some aluminum foil to drain away most of the rain. “Reflective mulch” is supposedly beneficial for other reasons.

I also wondered why garden pots don’t come with lids, but I realized that people like to grow in 5 gallon buckets - and there are lids for buckets.

I decided this year to try 5 gallon buckets with lids on, growing through small holes I drilled into the side. I will set up drip irrigation with masterblend. Growing in 50:50 coco perlite.

Has anyone tried growing in buckets with lids? I have seen pictures of upside down tomato plants hanging from 5 gallon buckets - but people seem to usually have the lids off of those.

My main concern is if roots will have adequate oxygen. I will find out. To increase oxygen, I decided not to fill my coco/perlite mix above the hole my tomato is growing out of.

[Whwoz]

Welcome to the Junction from Down Under @SpicyCurry. Whereabouts are you from?

Certainly an interesting way of trying to grow tomatoes but of no use t someone whom is not worried about restricting water supply like myself, where I am often adding more.

[pepperhead212]

Welcome to the forum!

I grow a lot of tomatoes, and some other things, in sub-irrigated planters, and something I found useful is that reflective plastic mulch - some of it I've re-used for many years, to the point where it looses much of the reflectiveness! Here is an album of a bunch of photos I took of tomatoes, showing a lot of that foil mulch, some new, some showing its age, but only losing the shine after several years.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/91097628@ ... 7977290367

And here are some of those upside down tomatoes, you asked about, that I planted a long time ago (wasn't sure I'd find a photo!). This was productive, but definitely a 2-person job, to hang them. I had them hooked up to a drip irrigation system, with a line to each. The SIPs turned out to be more productive, and easier, and there is a dripline hooked to each of those.
Upside down tomatoes, before fruiting. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Good luck with your garden!

[AKgardener]

I bought these pop up greenhouses for my beds and mini green houses .. re did the entire garden that way

[Danny]

Haven't tried to grow anyhing the way you are doing it, looks interesting though. Have used buckets and cut up some of the "space" shiny emergency blankets to circle around the bottom of the main stem on tomatoes, with the drip underneath the blanket piece. Cheap if you catch them on a sale and one did several buckets.

Looking forward to see how your plants do for you!

[Shule]

I've thought about stuff like that, but I've never tried it. I didn't think about making a hole on the side of the bucket, though. We don't get a lot of rain during most of the growing season, but we sometimes do in the fall/winter/spring. I probably thought about it as a mulch alternative, primarily, though. It could be an interesting way to lock in moisture (to reduce watering needs) and ensure there isn't too much sun on the soil by the roots. It might heat up the container a lot, though.

If I have to garden in containers, I prefer 18-gallon moving totes (ideally a more sun/freeze-resistant kind, like the four dark brown ones we have now; they weren't advertized as resistant; I just found out from using them; all the gray 10-gallon ones broke down after a few years). You don't have to water 18-gallon ones nearly as much as a 10-gallon tote, a 5-gallon bucket, or a 4-gallon bucket.

[PlainJane]

I tried tomatoes once in hard plastic containers, but in my N. Florida climate I found that fabric grow bags work better.