Hey guys. So my wife and I got a Topsey Turvey for our apartment (we have almost no balcony space, and a cat that loves to chomp on plants) and planted a seedling in it. We watered it about 1.5L per day at night. I noticed a lot of the water ran out, but it did great for about a month. Then the leaves and branches started to wither and turn yellow. The leaves got hard and crunchy. It went one branch at a time. So I started looking for the cause.
First of all I noticed the main stem was covered in dirt. So I put a drip waterer in it, covered the bottom with plastic, and started putting 1.5L twice a day in and washed off all the dirt from the plant.
When I was putting in the dripper, I noticed that the soil level had gone from totally full, to about 3/4 full. So I filled it up. We used Miracle GRO potting soil that protects the plant from over and under watering (I was terrible about over or under watering plants).
Still nothing. Now 4 branches are fully yellow and another one is turning.
But through all this, new branches are growing, and new buds are growing too.
The fruit has spots on it, but is still ripening. It is the only one we got.
The stems are still turning brown (like rust almost) and there are little black bits all around the plant (I can't tell if they are critters or not).
What can I do??? I don't want to kill this plant, and I would love to be able to keep the TT, but if I can't then I can't.
If I can't, what size pot should I use? How would I go about keeping the cat from getting at it?
Thank you guys so much!
Mike