And you have found out why growing plants upside down is a gimmick at best and a setup for failure at worst. Plants grow upwards - responding to gravity and light.
As for success in Seattle, try pots made of black plastic to keep the soil warm. Beyond that, and choosing good quality potting soil, there's not much you can do. Cherry tomatoes are more forgiving of cool weather.

Sorry for all the bad info you were given and the wasted $$$ it has cost you and now the many problems you'll have to deal with.

Is the Garden Soil a bad idea in containers? Definitely. It compacts badly, drains poorly and leads to plant root rot. Thus the warning on the bag. You'll find many discussions about the other problems it causes over on the Growing Tomatoes forum and the Container Gardening forum here. You'll also find many discussions there about all the issues of trying to grow upside down. It is a passing fad at best and a bad one.

While the Celebrity 'might' do ok in a proper sized container of 10-12 gallons and right side up and the Big Beef will need a container of at least a 12-15 gallons for success, the Sun Gold is a HUGE plant - by far the biggest of the varieties you have as it often reaches 4-5' in width and 8-10' tall. It seldom does well in even a 1/2 whiskey barrel sized container without a great deal of extra work and care and feeding. Next year stick with varieties that are bred specifically for growing in containers. There are many of them available.

Your plants are young enough and small enough that they can still be transplanted into a proper container mix and proper containers and do well IF you want to invest the money in making the needed changes.

Good luck.

Dave

Thanks a lot for your help. I will go ahead and get three big pots and see if I can transfer them into them. It will take up a bit more patio space than I'd bargained for, but I don't want to give up yet.

Do you think the fact that they've already started curving will hinder them, or will they straighten themselves out once they're planted normally?

Also, I'm guessing I can plant herbs or hanging flowers in those hanging basket-things just so they aren't a total writeoff.

I should have probably come here before embarking on this instead of getting my info from Pinterest and a HomeDepot employee. It just looked like such a good idea and space is a huge premium for me here since I'm in a downtown apartment.

Hi NeilDeal,

Just so you know, I messed up pretty bad with my first two tomato plants but I was able to plant them correctly much older than yours are& they bounced back like nothing was ever wrong with them. They are thriving! So, you aren't too late!

They will straighten back up within just a couple of days. Herbs will tolerate the soil in those baskets better than most flowers will. Most herbs aren't real pickey about their soil.

For the tomato containers you need a good soil-less potting mix. Several brands are available or you can make your own using one of the recipes on the Container gardening forum.

Dave

Grrrr, I wish they'd muzzle those big box employees. They should be trained to work the register, keep the shelves stocked, and to water plants. That's all!

You, of course, can take that stuff back for a refund and I hope that you do. Live and learn, I guess. We've all had to do it.

Nice. Thanks again for all the advice. I had no idea what I was doing.

Well, your patio is lovely. I think your basil will do fine in those baskets, and you can easily transplant your tomatoes into larger pots. You will probably have quite a jungle by September, but you could probably keep them pruned as needed. Enjoy your tomatoes!

I transferred them all to larger pots (with proper soil) and the "Big Beef" one, which was already upright, did fine. The two that were initially planted upside down and bending up to the sky didn't seem to enjoy the transition. I sliced open the liners and pulled them through the metal baskets as carefully as I could but they still got a little beat up. I then did the best I could to train them back to being upright, but they're still hunched over and kind of kinked in the part where they were making a U-turn. I'm hoping a few days of being upright will fix them.

I was also able to to repair the sliced-open liners of the hanging baskets with chunks of a replacement liner, so I've got my basil in there and will probably add some herbs to them.

Thanks again.

Don't worry about the kinks. The plants will grow toward the sun, kink and all. You may end up needing some sturdier support for them though.

Upside down planting is going against the nature of growing just about any thing. The name says it all :
Up side, down( and down side up)..It is like wearing your pants from the other end. You will have hard time to keep it on, AND you won't be able to walk..hehe