Having thrown in the towel on trying to grow vegetables by a wall with northern exposure, I reluctantly tried one of those TopsyTurvy tomato planters. (If you're buying them, don't buy them on that site -- they're cheaper elsewhere!)
The things actually work.
The tomato plant has doubled in size in a week. Better yet, I've cut our water usage on vegetables by half.
See, working on the logic that it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, I planted a second tomato in a pot just below the Topsy Turvy -- the higher one was taking out that chunk of walking space anyway, right? I added a marigold (seeded by last year's) to keep the bugs off, then caged it with one of the cages that comes to a point at the top. These are a little more work because you have to train the bush through the openings, but not much.
So now, when I water the Topsy Turvy, the runoff makes it rain steadily on the lower tomato. The pointed cage carries the water down and evenly around the edges of the pot. With one marigold and one off the ground, we have no worries about tomato worms, and none of the water used for the Topsy Turvy is lost.
Triumph!
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