In 2005 I tried growing an upside down tomato. See the progress here http://www.craftygardener.ca/garden12.html
It was a fun thing to do, but I really didn’t have the right place to keep the hanging buckets. You need something very strong to hang the buckets from.

That sounds like the kind of question that would puzzle me as well, if hadn’t seen a picture of it. The trick is that the bucket isn’t upside down, you hang it by its handle, and drill a hole in the bottom, which is just large enough for the stem to fit through. The tomato plant itself is upside down; the roots of the tomato plant are pointing upwards, the stem fits through the hole, and the toms are hanging down.
Hope this helps!

I’ve seen those topsy turvy baskets at garden centres, but I’ve never bought one, i am thinking this year of trying one, or simply making my own baskets similar to the one above,

That’s what I was thinking. I do like the coco-lined baskets though. I think they are pretty. I just bought one for the railing on our deck, and I am planning on buying at least two more. They are 9.00 a piece at Wal-mart. I just bought it today. I used to deliver the paper in SD, and some of my customers had them. I thought How pretty. If I ever can afford to, and live in a nice place, I would like to do that! Now we live in a nice house for next to nothing, (thanks to the housing market) and I can do little things now and then that are fun. (I can feed my gardening habit!!!)

I just bought 4 of these relatively cheap, and I am looking forward to trying at least one of them out this fall. Looking around in Folia for others with experience with them, especially with other vegetables like Zucchini. Wonder if growing Z up in the air would bewilder the squash stem borers?

Don’t believe the hype- these don’t work

First and foremost, they’re too small. I gave these a good try for two years running, to see whether I could make hanging tomatoes work. Maybe you could make them work if you’re going hydroponic, soilless and providing all nutrients in solution. Otherwise, my experiments showed me that tomatoes need about 2 cubic feet of soil. A typical tomato gets to be 3-4 feet high by the end of the season, and some, like Brandywine, get much larger.

2. Jim’s picture is probably the promotional picture, which does not show how tomato plants really grow. You can see the plant is growing in a hook shape. The way to get a plant that resembles THAT picture is to grow it rightside up until it reaches 24" and then turn it upside down. Tomatoes and all other plants want to grow up, and will make a u turn when you hang them upside down. Then the stalks will break at the bends as they grow and set fruit. That’s what happened to me.

3. Also consider, the roots are shading the leaves. That can’t be the best way to get the most out of your exposure.

So if you really want to hang your tomatoes, hang them, in a big pot, right side up, on a long cable that can be used to tie them as they get bigger. Better hang that cable from about 20 feet. Or give them a horizontal trellis if your twisted yearning is for tomatoes hanging down from overhead. But forget those Topsy-Turvey™ planters. They’ll make a monkey out of you, as they did to me.

Interesting inputs on the Topsy Turvys. Thanks!

Mine are still out in the garage in the original boxes.

Several years ago I saw someone with, it looked like, 30 of them suspended on wires, all over his patio. The tomato plants grew pretty much straight down. It looked to me, from a distance, like it worked for him. I actually saw them at the end of the season where the plants were large, but dead. They may well have died mid-season, for all I know.

Anyway, it looked good enough to me that when I could get them seemingly cheap, I bit.