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Felknor Ventures TT041112 Topsy Turvy Strawberry Planter
Grow delicious fresh strawberries right outside your door patio, deck or balcony. Simply place any strawberry or herb plant in the Topsy Turvy® Strawberry Planter, add potting soil, hang it up and then water. Sun warms the plant like a greenhouse and the root system thrives inside the planter. Hanging in the air eliminates any ground fungus, harmful bacteria, cutworm damage. There's no need for pesticides, digging, or weeding. If you enjoy fresh herbs, parsley, basil oregano or rosemary the Topsy Turvy is ideal.
Lowest New Price: USD 6.99
Works well so far
Bought that June 2nd offline together with the plants and some potter soil that already has fertilizer in it. Be careful that thing is - once full with soil and water - really heavy! The strawberries really need a lot of light to get going. And you need to water in chunks until it starts dripping out through the holes on the bottom (!) - and not on the sides. If you do it carefully that seems to work well. Takes around 10 minutes for me when I add it in smaller sips until it has gone through and starts running out of it.
The plants so far (this is now 4 weeks) have gone nuts in growing but we had little strawberries so far. A few flowers wilted early on as that watering is really important and you can't forget about it a single day!
The greenish plastic things covering the openings seem to tear very easily so I doubt that will last more than a year and replanting should be impossible.
It is a bit annoying that the water tends to come out on the sides quite easily instead of going through until the bottom. So make sure you water in sips and in the middle. As that might explain why some people experience that strong wilting. Since I've done strawberry growing on the ground too I knew already how much water strawberries need and that they the leaves and fruits should preferentially not touch soil to avoid ants and such eating them. Which makes me believe the general idea is good but the design can be improved.
But so far we like it. But you really need to get into the watering, maybe automatic watering would be a good idea.
Update august 2010: We had already many strawberries so far but I think I will buy another strawberry variety next year, they are quite small. The ones I bought were just "as is" Walmart ones and seem to be not too great, had no details to it. There seem to be varieties especially fitting for such hanging gardening. So pay attention to get good plants! Watering is still no problem, can't confirm the complaints about plants dying at the bottom. What I realized though: even though I consider our tap water quite good quality the plants get yellow leaves in some areas if I don't let the water sit in the jug for one day. Might be residual chlorine or something? So try to not water them directly from the tap.
