I bought one of those Topsy Turvy’s like what you see on T.V. It looked like an interesting design and I wanted to see how well it worked. I planted some tomatoes in it and kept it watered very nicely. The cool thing about this design is that you are taking the dirt out of the ground and putting it above ground so the sun can keep it warm in order to allow the plant to grow nicely. The other nice thing is that you can’t over water this. If you over water it, the water just drips right out the bottom. The concept of this is really good because when you think about what some of the biggest polluters on the planet are it is shipping plants and vegetables from the country to the city. This is doing two things. 1. It is cutting down on pollution because you no longer need to ship to the city. 2. It is good for the planet by converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. By having vertical farms like this you are maximizing efficiency of places where you can grow.
This first photo is taken from June 26th, 2010.
These two photos were taken from July 1st, 2010.
A couple of downsides to the Topsy Turvy is that the tarp cloth construction of it rots out over time. This isn’t a prolonged solution. Also, after 1 year the dirt inside become really hard, so you need to periodically change the dirty. I would say that if you use it for just one year it is a good thing, but you probably won’t be able to get a prolonged usage out of it. Nice concept, nice design, construction needs some improvement if you want any type of long term solution.
