I thought you would like to see how the planters and the plants performed. First of all, I am convinced more that ever that the smaller container you have, the smaller the root system and thus the smaller the plant and the smaller the tomatoes. The tap-root in this pail with the tomato plant hanging upside down basically filled the container. See the picture:

The next question is, did the plant take advantage of the lava rock reservoir at the bottom of the pail. The answer is yes, there are tons of roots in the red lava rock tapping that water.

Then, what does the root structure look like in the rest of the soil. Now this is harder to see. I did my best to cut the dirt ball in half and lay it open. Remember also I had snap peas planted in the top of this planter early in the season, some of those roots, although dead, may be visible. Here is the picture anyway:

All in all it was worth my time. I plan on adding another(4th) pail next year. I would not plant green peppers upside down again. In my case they were terribly delayed and did not come to full ripe or size in the season. Tomatoes were just fine. Cucumbers worked well out of the top, so I'm going to try other squash types out of there.

I don't plan on adding any more until closer to spring when I plan to start my own tomatoes from seed. Another new adventure...

I will continue to monitor the comments so for those of you in the southern hemisphere, keep them coming.

Until spring or the blog bug hits me, see you in 2010....

I have had a busy summer. The last entry was August, where did that 2 months go? We had the first freeze here yesterday. Now the planters are on the 3rd floor in a semi-protected balcony, so I don't know if they made it or not. I will see this evening. Another cold one tonight, it will freeze again. Rollin the dice...

One of the tomatoes had finished, the Early Girl was done a couple of weeks ago. The Better Bush got a growth spurt that is probably going no where, so I left that in. The Green peppers upside down became so delayed, compared to sister plants planted right side up 4 feet away, that there are the first small peppers on them now. Not the plant apparently to plant upside down. The cucumbers did very nicely in the top of one of the planters, but they asked for a lot of water and wilted if not watered daily. Tasted good, though. I'll plant them again. Going for Zucchini squash as well next year.

Busy on this and that. I haven't spent much time writing here. We have harvested a good dozen tomatoes, a good salad of green beans, a few peas, 2 green peppers and 3 cucumbers. Lots of stuff on the vine to come.

As you can see by the last batch of pictures, there sure were a lot of cucumber blossoms. I only got about 3 of those blossoms to fruit, very disappointing. Then I thought that because this is on a third floor apartment balcony, the bees have not found me. The fact I am in the city doesn't help either. I decided to have sex with the plants and it is bearing fruit, literally. I go out there with a Q-Tip swab and touch the flowers back and forth like a bee does, and voila, I am getting about 50% of this batch to fruit. I hope the neighbors aren't watching us...

Harvested 2 tomatoes this week. Both went into a salad my daughter shared at the Bingo lunch in her building.

Then a look at the cucumbers I was worried about taking over the world. Here they are, tons of flowers and gerkins forming up to 2 inches already. I'm going to wait until bigger.

Then a shot of the rest of the pails and an overview shot.

I am watering about 10oz a day now. The sun and the heat of the day is really agreeing with the green peppers and the cucumbers. The flowers are wildly successful. The lettuce is about done for now, replant in the cooler fall.

Thanks for checking in.

As promised, current pictures...

Green Peppers forming.