Tomatoes Grow Up- On to Plan B

I like the concept of the Topsey Turvey. Growing tomatoes in a vertical container is an interesting idea, but I really hate the way the Topsey Turvey planter looks. To my eye the plant looks uncomfortable hanging out of the container by its stem and my eye is drawn to that ugly container, not the plant. Nevertheless, I need to find more spaces to plant all these seedlings so I decided that I would give vertical spaces a shot and the idea of the tomato fort was born.

The tomato fort was supposed to use a series of less ugly planters hanging off the balcony. In theory the tomatoes would grow down and the kids could hide out under the balcony and eat tomatoes. Sigh, the plan is flawed. Tomatoes, it seems like to grow up! When I planted this Sungold initially it was pointing nearly straight down. It didn't like that one bit and has fairly quickly rearranged itself. On to plan B.

Plan B is a foggy idea of sticking fragrant, vining sweetpea's in the same container so that they 1. help cover the ugly container and, 2. Grow down and make a sweet pea wall. Plan B is also flawed since the peas are unlikely to grow long enough to make a fort wall to the ground before freaking out from the heat. I considered using something like pole beans but sweet pea's smell way better and since this balcony is off the master bedroom I thought that might be nice. I do have some leftover corn and sunflowers. I suppose I could plant a row of those right under the balcony edge and have them grow up and the peas grow down....hmmm.

Now, changing subjects completely before I go off on some weird creative tangent of crazy garden ideas, I wanted to share some horsechestnut pictures. The blooms are so huge and tropical looking that I just love them. These whites ones are on two big mature trees at the back of the lot and they are fragrant. Just as the lilac perfume has faded, the horsechestnut scent is here!

The red blooms are on a much younger tree in the front. I'm very excited to see these blooms. I ordered this tree from a catalog years ago and it arrived as a skinny, pathetic, half dead stick. It has required a lot of babying to get established. It suffered some pretty amazing mildew attacks, and lost all it's leaves in the middle of summer twice but it pulled through and it is looking beautiful. So the tomato fort idea was a fail but Brioti was such a great win, I don't even mind. Half the fun of whacky plans is trying them out anyway. : )