First Tomatoes Of The Season

I am happy to say that I have finally gotten some tomatoes from my garden.  Last year when I first started gardening, I planted several seeds of the Yellow Pear tomato variety.  It was an indeterminate and I received lots of plants with tons of greenery, but not very many flowers.  I feed the plants regularly (but that was the problem, I feed them before they started to fruit and I think that is where I failed).  I also had several other tomato plants in makeshift upside down containers (flop) and I also had one in a "TOPSY TURVY" (flop).  Maybe it was the location of the plant, not enough sun, maybe too much watering, maybe anything.  I am happy to say that I have several tomato plants growing and about 5 of them are in buckets and 4-5 are in my raised bed, with 2 additional plants that I received at a swap, that is finally starting to take off.   Everyone of the ones in buckets have started to set fruit and the tomatoes below are from those plants "Black Prince Russian Heirloom (left) and Early Girl (right)".  All the ones in he raised beds have set fruit and I am hopeful that the 2 that I got a swap will do the same (they will be my late in the season tomatoes, when the others poop out).  People tell me all the time that tomatoes are one of the easy plants to grow (along with peppers) and I should have no problem.  I think they are right, with PRACTICE.  These tomatoes were real good.  They are small, but that's great since only my husband and I like tomatoes (daughter does not like them unless it is ketchup, spaghetti sauce, or pizza sauce).  We are able to pick the fruit and they are great personal sizes.

Have you tried the upside down version of planting and what was your success, did you do anything different with these plants than you did in your in ground/raised bed/containers?  Also, have you tried growing tomatoes in buckets/containers, what was your results (I know some varieties are more conducive to container gardening)?

Here are photos of last year's garden and the lonely tomato that I got, it was good, but one, come on.