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Pro tip: don't buy those cheap self-watering pots on Amazon
I spent $60 on a set of 4 self-watering pots from some random brand last spring. Thought they'd save me time with my cherry tomatoes and basil on my balcony. By week three, the wicking strings got moldy and the reservoir water smelled like rotten eggs. Lost all three tomato plants and had to toss two pots because the plastic cracked in the sun. Has anyone found a self-watering system that actually works for balcony gardening?
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the_robert1mo ago
Oh man, that sucks. I mean, it's not just you with those cheap Amazon pots. It feels like there's this whole pattern now where people try to make gardening easier by buying shortcuts that just don't hold up in real sun and weather. Same thing happens with those fabric grow bags everyone raves about, they dry out in like two hours. The mold and rotten egg smell is a pretty good sign the whole wicking system is a gimmick for anything other than a shady spot with one houseplant. I think the real trick for balcony stuff is just getting a few normal terracotta pots and learning to stick your finger in the soil every other day, it sounds old school but it works way better than getting surprised by dead plants. Maybe for the future, try big plastic nursery pots with a saucer underneath and just water from the bottom, at least you can see the gunk building up before it kills everything.
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simontorres1mo ago
Bro, c'mon. It's a cheap pot from Amazon, not a life crisis. You're acting like it murdered your firstborn. Yeah, they're not great, but worst case you lose a $15 basil plant, big deal. I've got a few of those fabric bags and they're fine if you just water them like twice a day when it's hot, which isn't exactly rocket science. And terracotta pots are great and all but they break if you look at them wrong, so let's not pretend they're the perfect solution either.
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henry10121d ago
I mean, the weird thing nobody's bringing up is how those cheap plastic pots actually change the soil chemistry over time. I had one that started leaching some weird oily residue after a few months in the sun, totally messed up my mint's root system before I noticed.
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