Garden Fail # 63

I live in an apartment with a small balcony, but I miss growing my own herbs and vegetables. I have a successful indoor hydroponic herb garden, but last year I decided to grow tomatoes on my balcony. Because I’m not very smart, I decided to grow them upside down in hanging baskets – got forbid I could do something the normal way for once. I set them up with marigolds on top, and even had an automatic drip waterer to stop them from getting thirsty. I probably spent $200 all up. They got off to a promising start. For about four weeks they looked great, and I really thought I’d get a healthy crop of cherry tomatoes. I babied them, I checked them daily, I made sure they were properly watered and fed, and after a few weeks I got my first flowers – and it was all downhill from there. The drip waterer struggled to keep up with demand, and with hot, windy weather the plants dried out easily. One particularly hot day, the drip waterer got blocked. By the time I got home, it was too late. The marigolds had wilted, and the tomato plants (already basically just stalks by this point) were looking very sad.

Don’t be fooled by the photos from the beginning, or other peoples’ success stories online. It doesn’t work. I spent hundreds of dollars and hours of time to end up with zero tomatoes, a bunch of dead marigolds, and two dried out tomato stalks hanging depressingly out the bottom of a hanging basket.

There are, quite clearly, much smarter ways to make the most of growing in limited space!