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Vent: my $70 self-watering planter killed my peppers faster than my neighbor's cat, and everyone said it was the smart buy
I live in Chicago and my balcony gets brutal west sun, so last June I dropped $70 on one of those self-watering planters that everyone on here keeps pushing. The whole pitch is you fill a reservoir and forget about it, but nobody mentions the soil stays soaked at the bottom while the top three inches go bone dry. My jalapenos sat in that swamp for two weeks and the roots went brown and mushy before I figured out what was wrong. My cheap $12 grow bags from the hardware store on Milwaukee Ave did way better, and I ended up moving everything back into those by August. I get why the self-watering thing sounds good, and maybe it works if you mix in way more perlite than the box says, but mine was a straight up pepper killer. So what actually works for you all in a hot afternoon spot, drippers, mulch, bigger bags, or do you just water twice a day like a chump?
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brian_jackson3d ago
Man, my buddy Pete ran into the exact same thing with a $60 self-watering pot he got for his tomatoes. He swore by it until his plants started looking sad, pulled one out and the bottom half of the roots were straight up rotten while the top was dry as dust. He ended up drilling extra holes in the sides and mixing in a ton of perlite, and that finally stopped the swamp situation. For a hot west balcony though, he just went to bigger fabric bags with a thick layer of straw mulch on top and waters once in the morning, says it holds way better than that fancy reservoir ever did.
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