I fed my potted plants every single week all summer to keep them going through the heat: when I scraped off the white crust on the soil, I understood why they were dying
That white crust suffocating your potted plants isn’t dirt—it’s fertilizer salt. Weekly summer feeding meant to save heat-stressed plants actually created a mineral trap that reversed water flow into roots, mimicking drought symptoms so perfectly you fed them even harder. Here’s what happened and how to fix it.