Do you remember the fad from about 10 years ago when everyone was growing their tomatoes upside down? The Topsy Turvy tomato planter was everywhere. They were a fairly simple yet clever device that purported to grow tremendous tomatoes with no digging, no weeding and no hassle. You simply filled the green tube-shaped bag with soil and planted your tomato plant sticking out from the bottom of it. Fertilize and water from the top and voila! You had yourself a little hanging tomato factory.

I never tried the Topsy Turvy but I did jump on another gardening fad this year: Mr Stacky! Have you heard of it? Mr Stacky is a vertical plant growing system made up of stacking, interlocking plastic trays, distributed by YP Supplier, LLC dba Mr Stacky. According to their website, the company was founded in 2009 by Yaping Xing Morgan and her husband, Robert Morgan. At that time, around 40 million gardeners were planting for food… fresh vegetables at their homes. Well, they had this clever idea about creating planters and hydroponic planting systems that would take up much less room than traditional gardens and grow houses. The sky was the limit so they reached for the sun with vertical planting. Mr Stacky was born.

I’d been aware of Mr Stacky without knowing his name for a year or two so I thought I’d finally give it a try. When my box was delivered, I was underwhelmed by the size. How would my tower of strawberries ever come from such a small box? Well, of course, it was designed to all fit snugly and really all I got with the starter/basic kit was five of the cloverleaf-shaped trays and the drip tray to set it in. I went for black, thinking it would absorb more heat than the brightly colored kits (and to be a tad understated since I was a little embarrassed that I’d bought the thing.)

I also ordered a dozen strawberry plant starts since that was the most common thing I saw planted in Mr Stacky in the online resources I looked at. The clever design of the trays interlock so each one is approximately 20 degrees offset from the tray below. You fill each tray with potting mix and assemble the whole thing. I knew the higher end varieties had both a galvanized pipe that slid right down the middle hole of the setup as well as a drip tray with wheels. No problem! I found a 4’ section of copper pipe down in the basement and I put the whole contraption on a wheeled plant carrier I use for some of my larger tropicals during the winter months indoors. I highly recommend these to make placing your big old ficus tree or bird of paradise exactly where you want it and to allow you to rotate the plants with ease for sun exposure.

A couple of the strawberry starts weren’t viable, so I filled 8 of the bottom slots with little strawberry plants. With 5 trays, that give you 20 deep little planting opportunities. So, I put in two types of basil, an ornamental pepper, parsley, chives and topped it all off with a Sun Gold cherry tomato plant. Partner, Joe, immediately commented that I’d be looking at failure putting a tomato plant in the thing. Undeterred, I was kind of proud of my vertical garden.

I had a nagging fear, though. With the winds we’d already been experiencing this season and the fact that Dublin has even stronger winds at its high elevation, I’d already had to rescue the aforementioned massive ficus tree. It broke free from its never-fail pipe-bolted-to-the-house contraption I’d set up years ago for its summer home on the back deck. The bird of paradise almost went flying and the large schefflera laid prostrate one morning despite a bungy cord anchoring it to a porch post. I thought I’d go buy another section of pipe, a connector and a flange to attach it to the eave ceiling to guarantee its stability. As these things go, though, I bought the coupler piece of copper only to realize I’d need to flare the ends to jam the pipe into either end. It didn’t happen. A myriad of other chores and glasses of porch wine never let me complete the task. Miraculously, though, Mr Stacky never blew over.

Well, what’s my final analysis of Mr Stacky? All in all, a fun project. The design of it means you water from the top and it all drizzles down to the trays below. It really does work, though I frequently gave some of the lower compartments a separate drink. Even though each planting well is about 6” deep, Mr Stacky does dry out awfully fast. Whereas I water most of my other container plants every two or sometimes three days, Mr Stacky likes a good soaking daily.

We’ve clipped herbs throughout the season. Unfortunately, the strawberries were a big flop. For some reason they didn’t need watering as frequently as the herbs and tomato so many succumbed to root rot. There’s still a couple alive but I don’t have high hopes. The most fun, though, came from the Sun Gold cherry tomato. Though it’s gotten nowhere near as big as planting it in the ground, it’s been an absolute pleasure to grab a few ripe ones at a time and pop them in my mouth. Ripe, sun-warmed tomatoes are heaven sent in my opinion. I’ll give Mr Stacky another try next year. I think I’ll mix herbs with some low-growing annuals and, of course, another cherry tomato.

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