The Topsy Turvy Lie

The ads for Topsy Turvy are soo compelling with the huge tomatoes hanging from a stem shooting off the bottom of a simple, upside down planter. But, ads can be deceiving, and what we found is…

The Topsy Turvy Ads are a LIE!

I decided to do a simple experiment to see if I couldn’t use simple things around the house to create an upside down tomato planter. Specifically, I wanted to create one that looked like the Topsy Turvy Ads on TV. You know the ones with the huge beefsteak style tomatoes hanging in clumps off the upside-down plant.

I was so excited to see how easy it was to start a seedling, insert it into the hole on the bottom of the hanging flower pot, add some potting soil and watch it grow. However, I noticed, the plant was trying to grow up, toward the sun. That didn’t correlate with television ads, so I decided to do some research.

Here’s the tomato plant growing toward the sun.
Once the plant got larger and heavy, the weight (wind and rain) forced it down.

All the reviews I read stated the upside-down tomato planter only worked for cherry tomatoes, not beefsteak style tomatoes. For the very same reason I was noticing with my plant; that is, the plant tries to grow up toward the sun. When the plant get heavy or blooms and starts to grow tomatoes, the weight of the plant and the large tomatoes pulls the plant down and eventually breaks the main stalk. Hence, no tomatoes.

You can see the fracture in the plant’s stalk.

On my plant, it bloomed, but no tomatoes ever formed. I also read, the Topsy Turvy is sold with tomato seeds, Cherry Tomato Seeds. Not exactly what they portray on their TV ads.

So once again, we see deception in advertising. The Topsy Turvy Ads are a Lie!