Growing tomatoes can make you see red

With all the "What to expect when you're expecting" books floating around, how come there isn't one about birthing tomatoes?

Because let's be honest, folks, for all its wondrous moments, the process has its perplexing points.

In years past when I've grown tomatoes in the ground, I've simply plunked them in the dirt, thrown some mushroom compost at them, supplied water fairly regularly, strapped them against the fence and waited for my proverbial ship to come in.

Container tomatoes are entirely separate animals.

Especially when they're hanging in the breeze. Upside down.

Here's what I've learned so far, though, from my experiment this summer, whereby I'm trying to grow upside down tomatoes in different types of containers:

• I hate aphids.

• Brown spots are bad. Muy bad.

• If you go into a hardware store asking to buy a bag of lime, don't be surprised when the FBI performs a background check and asks to see how many bodies are buried in your backyard.

Aside from that, everything's gone pretty well, I think.

Let's refresh. In late April I planted three Burpee Fourth of July tomato plants - one in a homemade five-gallon bucket that I planned to hang upside down, another in the Topsy Turvy hanging planter and a third in the EarthBox standard upright planter.

Oh yeah, I disregarded advice and planted a bunch of other things in the EarthBox, too: three peppers and two cucumber plants. The cucumbers were dead by May (they rest in peace.)

I'd nicknamed one of the peppers Lefty for his propensity to, well, lean a bit to the left, and I discovered he was just not a happy camper. So once the cucumbers skipped town, I altered his address and moved his position from front left to back right - and guess what? Apparently he'd simply been having an identity crisis for a month.

"Righty" now happily sports a full head of jalapenos and is co-mingling nicely.

Now, on to the tomatoes.

The foliage is beautiful, is it not? Lush, thick, dark green.

For those of you following along on my blog (www.dailyherald.com/givinggarden), I'm still having problems with my tomatoes. And unfortunately I think that's my fault, and not the fault of the experiment.

I had an infestation of aphids in May that disappeared as soon as I turned the tomato plants upside down - I'm thinking they don't like the light of day! Survived that. Don't like the bugs. Ick.

Then it seemed to take forever for the plants to fill in, but when they did, they seemed to take off. I'm thinking it was the sudden arrival of all the heat.

I first noticed the icky brown spots on the bottom of tomatoes in the EarthBox and the crew at that company suspected the problem hailed from too much rainwater early in the spring. The system's designed to force plants to draw water from a bottom reservoir, not the soil on top.

They suggested I add hydrated lime.

Never having made such an acquisition, I assumed it was readily available. So I stopped at an Ace Hardware, where I was treated to a tale about a clerk's murderous landlord and her plans to dispose of the victim's body with a 20-lb. bag of lime. Then he added, "You know this is what the mob uses, too."

The behemoth bag remained in the store.

When I swung by Home Depot, I found a less "hazardous" version of lime made by Espoma that seemed to have a bunch of other minerals combined with it. And it was even encapsulated, so if I spilled some, my limbs wouldn't erode. I thought that was nice.

I mixed that into my watering can, then fed both the EarthBox and both hanging planters. Blossom end rot is usually caused when plants have inconsistent water, and on several occasions I didn't get to the buckets fast enough after work. They are very thirsty buggers - requiring water daily, sometime twice daily.

Apparently that caused me to over-worry about watering - having seen how quickly the planters can dry out. That exasperated the problem.

So far the lime hasn't staunched the bleeding in the EarthBox, but I think that's because I've now over-watered both it and the hanging planters. Ever heard the expression "too much of a good thing?"

Now I'm going back to a plan of diligent moderation (is that a non-sequitor?) and hoping to salvage the next flush of tomatoes. I already removed more than a dozen bad ones last weekend. My overzealous watering will probably nuke another dozen. Thankfully the production predictions are true and these babies are kicking out fruit at a furious pace so it won't take long until things improve, right?

Overall, it seems like planters and the plants are generally healthy. I think I'm going to stop meddling for a little bit and see what happens.

It certainly can't hurt.

Did you try the experiment too? Please let me know! I'll run your photos and comments in the paper and in the blog. You can contact me at cedman@dailyherald.com.

I'd love to hear from you!