Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I found this while looking for greenhouse info.
http://www.seedsofknowledge.com/tomato2.html

And this one also
http://www.clubwisconsin.com/tomato/

How hard do you think it would be to make this into a aquaponic application?

I was thinking of following the clubwisconsin sites directions but adding a layer of the permeable ground cloth at the bottom before placing the grow media (gravel etc)into the bucket. Add a side pipe or a couple for drainage to allow the tank water to flow through and return to the tank or bed below.
Possibly drill additional holes around the perimiter of the bucket for additional plants to grow around the bucket.

Anyone think of any major flaws to doing this? Should be fairly space efficient.

Here is some pros but they are trying to sell their product so no cons shown

Why Grow Tomatoes Upside Down
Why has it become so popular to try growing tomatoes upside down? You see articles on building your own planters, and there are a variety of commercial planters. Let's examine some of the advantages of upside down tomatoes:

No Staking - Since the tomatoes are hanging from the planter, you have no need to stake them, or bother with any other types of support other than the planter hanger. For some indeterminate types of tomatoes, you may find you need to trim them to keep them off the ground, but no stakes.

Soil Borne Pests - Since the tomato plants don't rest on the ground, you don't have nearly the problems with slugs and other soil borne pests.

Soil Borne Disease - SInce you are likely to replenish the soil annually with a planter, problems with diseases lurking in the potting soil are significantly lower.

Improved Air Circulation - Since the tomato plants are suspended in the air, you get a lot better air circulation. This results in improved pollination and higher yields, and fewer problems with rot

Weeds - Since the planter has very little exposed soil, there are almost no problems with weeds and no need for weeding.

Location - The beauty of container gardening is that you can do it almost everywhere. You can hang one of these planters on your apartment or condo balcony, or you can hang it on your patio so you don't have to travel to the garden to get fresh tomatoes for your salad.

Cons that I have found while searching.
Wind can tear the hell out of your plants

Must use varieties of tomatoes made for container gardening

Moisture retention (this shouldnt be a problem aquaponic system though)

Johnnie is doing tomatoes in buckets but they're rightside-up.

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... 7106#97106

I got a bunch of buckets from Freecycle that I'm thinking about using for tomatoes, the hanging and upside-down style could be very space efficient.

Edited by CL

Welcome aboard Charlie Great Idea.

I would be doing something similar just using a filter media cloth to do the same thing. Like the material you see on roadside projects that filter storm runoff on the roadside. I figure I will still get some water running down the stems but it will keep the grow media in. Was thinking more along the lines of flood and drain system.

I also thought of doing the same as you show for your strawberrys using a 6" (150mm) or larger pipe (I have easy acess to 12"(300mm))and grow a couple tomatoes at the base one on either side near the bottom and other plants up the sides

BTW Charlie how many strawberry plants do you get per tower?

Neat idea, Charlie, how do you get the plants started? Are they in net pots or ?

On a 4" diameter pipe, 9 per vertical ft. In 6" pipe, 12 per ft. I've seen some with more crowding but I prefer not. I like to make the vertical spacing at 6" per vertical row and with staggered rows they are like 3" apart beside each other up or down if that makes sense. If you look at my pictures there is a good one of a 6" pipe on my patio that better describes what I'm trying to say, :lol

All the plants in my patio hydro system were started in plastic cups with potting soil which made it a pain to then wash the roots when transplanting into the system's smaller foam plugs. From now on I will start them right in a plug filled with perlite and plug them right in.

The strawberries were ordered from a nursery. Had to also wash the roots, trim them and put them in the foam plugs and then into the towers which are then filled with perlite and set with a drip emitter at the top with 2gph continuous feed. Perlite seems to be working fine so far but as I'm pretty new to all this I'm not sure of possible nutrient buildup down the road and may need periodic flushing with fresh water.

I do someday want to convert all this over to aquaponics...

Love the pictures!!!

I expect that doing the upside down tomato thing will make flood n drain kinda difficult and having wet foliage/stem on the tomato plant may open one up to a new set of disease problems.

What I understand about most tomatoes in hydroponic situations is that they love to clog plumbing with their roots so keep that in mind.

If you want to do hanging tomatoes in AP or hydro, you could probably still do it and make flood n drain (provided the support for the hanging container can handle the weight) but it wouldn't quite be the upside down container. Here is how I would suggest to do it.
Find a container that you can hang and plumb.
Plumb it up with whatever method of plumbing you decide on.
hang and fill it with the appropriate media.
Plant tomato in a normal fashion but as it grows, let it hang down instead of staking or tying it up.

I would think the roots would tend to grow mainly at the bottom of the bucket as normal due to geotropism/gravitropism.
Toms have air roots near the soil surface and water roots that go deeper, with the upside down method the roots would need to grow the opposite way round and against gravity.
The plant will no doubt grow the way its supposed to (roots down and shoots up), regardless of which way you orientate the container but its a nice experiment all the same

Apparently the tomato plants in the up side down conatiners grow fine. I just don't know how to do a flood n drain in such a container.
Tomatoes can also grow in normal hanging containers and drape over the side and hang down. And we know they grow fine in AP.

I figure the easiest way to have hanging tomatoes in AP would be to do it kinda like a regular hanging container but instead of holes in the pot, just do plumbing for AP.

that has to be the coolest thing I've ever seen. I had a thought to keep the water in the bucket from leaking out the bottom. say you have a hole big enough for the stem of the plant to grow in girth. on the inside of the bucket you could put a latex disk which would allow the stem to get thicker and keep the bucket reasonably water tight without strangling the plant. think of like a condom for the bucket. another thought would be to make a cone pointing inside the bucket making enough room for the water to build up and drain out. I'd only consider this for a constant flow system, flood and drain would be to hard to make it work. I like the idea in the first link of planting herbs ontop of the bucket as well. I might give this an attempt with a hydro system. maybe using the slow leaking/weeping hose all through the media so there isn't much water to drain at all.

Been around for years.....

Genuine Topsy Turvey

Topsy Turvey Images

http://www.whitman.wsu.edu/documents/Tr ... feren1.doc

http://site.hgandg.com/topsyturvys/Tops ... Rrings.pdf

Amazon Sells Them


and yep zombie... there's even a herb garden on top variety

Upside Down Garden

Some DIY versions .... http://www.clubwisconsin.com/tomato/

I have grown tomatoes upside down in 5 gallon buckets. It works great with bush tomatoes. With vine tomatoes you have to turn the vine up once it reaches the ground and tie it up. Then it grows back up hiding the bucket. Its pretty neat. The problem I had as forgetting to water them every morning and noon.


Fill the bucket with expanded clay pellets.
I dont see why you could not hang theses over your tank (for shade?) or growbed and just run a line to it letting the water flow through each cycle as your normal beds flood and fill; just a trickle. Fill then with expanded clay balls. If more moisture is needed then get that water holding polymer stuff; such as at http://www.watercrystals.com/