I bought a $75 'self-watering' planter system for my balcony tomatoes and it was a total waste.

3 comments

3 Comments

My neighbor had the same problem with her balcony setup last summer. The issue wasn't the planter itself but the afternoon sun on our west-facing building. It baked the water reservoir, making the soil way too hot and wet for the roots. Those systems work best in more shaded spots or with plants that like constant damp soil. Tomatoes really want that wet-dry cycle. I ended up going back to a cheap plastic pot and just checking it every morning.

jordan65313h ago

Oh man, isn't that always the way? You buy the fancy gadget thinking you're being smart, and it just makes everything worse. I swear, my neighbor's self-watering pot turned her basil into a science experiment gone wrong. It's like, congratulations, you've created the perfect environment for... moss. So now she's back to a regular old bucket with holes drilled in the bottom and her plants are doing better than ever. Maybe the real high-tech solution was just remembering to water things all along.

rose_hart3112d ago

Ugh, that's so frustrating... I feel your pain. I tried one of those fancy ceramic self-watering pots for my herbs and it was a disaster. The roots just sat in cold, soggy dirt and everything got moldy. Sometimes the simple stuff really is better, like that cheap plastic pot you mentioned. It's a bummer to learn the hard way after spending all that money.