the_reese•4d agoOG Member

Spent 3 months watering my cherry tomatoes wrong before a neighbor pointed it out

I had this tiny balcony garden last summer and my cherry tomato plants looked terrible. Leaves curling, fruit splitting. I kept adjusting the soil, the light, even bought a different fertilizer. Nothing worked. My downstairs neighbor finally came up to borrow a drill and saw me watering. She was like "why are you dumping it on the leaves?" Turns out I was watering from the top like a lawn and the roots were barely getting anything. Switch to bottom watering in trays and within two weeks the plants looked totally different. Anyone else have a basic gardening skill that took you way too long to figure out?

2 comments

2 Comments

grantnelson4d ago

Man I used to think watering from the top was totally fine. Always figured water on leaves was normal since that's how rain works right? Then I tried bottom watering with trays after reading some random reddit post and holy crap what a difference. The roots actually drink what they need instead of just letting the water run off. My basil turned from yellow to deep green in like a week. Now I swear by it for all my container plants. Rain works in nature but pots are a whole different game.

troy_gibson4313h ago

Damn I was the same way lmao. Always thought rain was the perfect example so top watering had to be fine. But once I tried bottom watering for my tomatoes it was night and day, roots went crazy. Kinda embarrassing how long it took me to switch lol.