Hot take: I doubted moisture meters until my balcony tomatoes proved me wrong

For two years I just poked my finger into the soil to check if my pots needed water. I figured those little moisture meters were a gimmick for beginners. Then last June my cherry tomatoes kept getting blossom end rot even though I was watering every other day. A neighbor in my building let me borrow her $12 meter from the hardware store. Turns out the top inch felt dry but three inches down it was soaking wet. I was drowning the roots without realizing it. After I started using the meter twice a week my plants bounced back in about 10 days. Now I keep one in each of my five balcony pots. Has anyone else had a similar experience with a cheap gardening tool they were skeptical about?

2 comments

2 Comments

lucas_carr2423d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, she had a pH tester sitting there for months and just ignored it until her blueberries were practically dying? That's wild to me. I get being skeptical of cheap tools, but once you've got it in your hand, why not just poke it in the dirt real quick one time to see what it says? I mean, I was guilty of ignoring my moisture meter for a whole week after borrowing it, but months is a whole different level of stubbornness.

skylerw8723d ago

You know a friend of mine swore by those cheap soil testers that also check pH? She ignored it for months until her blueberries started looking sick, then finally tested the soil and found it was way too alkaline. Fixed it with some sulfur and the plants came back strong the next season. She still uses that same $10 tester every spring now.