Container gardening is an either or proposition for me. Either I have to have a deep container that will retain water and nutrients, or I have to be willing to water and feed more often to compensate. If you can meet those requirements, I can't see why it would matter whether our container is hanging or sitting.

I would guess that the shallots would do ok in a relatively shallow container, and you could put two or three Tumbling Tom tomatoes in one large hanging basket. As for peppers, Mohawk or Sweet Pickle Peppers are smaller varieties and ideally suited for containers. If you like them, there are even small cukes that would grow well trailing over the edges of a basket.

You definitely can effectively grow tomatoes & shallots in hanging containers, and other things too (I have strawberries in hanging baskets that do really well). As long as you get the biggest container you can, and go with plastic or metal rather than something porous that will dry out super-fast, you should be right!

As far as tomatoes go there are so many different varieties, you just need to find the ones that are described as being good in containers. Red Robin, Tumbling Tom & Silvery Fir are all pretty good choices. Also have a look for posts about "upside down tomatoes" on here and around the web, it's a method people have used to grow even the really big indeterminate tomato plants up off the ground.

Here is a link that might be useful: Upside Down Tomatoes

We had great luck planting our tomatoes upside down in hanging baskets this year. Just cut the 3 in. section out of the bottom of the basket and plant it up side down

You might enjoy looking at pictures of Nelly's small "tomatenplanten", linked below. Although this is a Dutch site, the variety names are in English.

Sophie's Choice is one that I am excited about trying. Full-sied, full-flavor, tomatoes on a very small plant!

Here is a link that might be useful: Nellys Tomaten

Jerryntex, do you have a link to some pictures or reports on the growth of your upside down tomatoes? I always find posts from people who say they're about to try it, and sometimes from people who have tried and liked it, but I never seem to see the mid-way ones that show us how it's going!

What variety did you grow, and how big were the baskets?

I've got some determinate tomatoes going in hanging self-watering baskets, but they're not growing upside down. I'm hoping that the stems will curve & they'll sprawl a bit, despite being a non-staking variety.

Here's a photo of them about 2 months ago. They're much taller now, and flowering & setting fruit. I think I've got them a bit over-crowded, but I'm curious to see how they do in the conditions.

{{gwi:118185}}

Thank you. Those posts were very helpful.

Thanks so much for the link to Nellys Tomaten! Who knew there were so many varieties of tiny tomato plants? I want to do two hanging baskets on my balcony this year, a 14" and a 10". One gets full sun, one partial, so I may end up doing lettuce in that one (the 14 incher). My question is, do they taste good? I see your reference to Sophie's Choice being tasty, but I wanted a cherry size, and will do full size ones in my garden patch. I may see if I can put Nelly's site through a translator and see what she says about flavor.

msaunt