my plant is dying, help please

Hi everyone,
I am a first-time grower and I am having a few problems with my 3 weeks old plant.

I am growing outdoor in soil when my plant started showing yellow leaves on the bottom, so I looked it up and I thought it was nitrogen deficiency, however, when I gave fertilizer to the plant, the yellowing didn't get better.

Also about 2 days ago my entire plant started looking off, with all the leaves drooping.

Can anyone tell me what's going on?
Thanks, everyone

The yellow leaves will never get better so you just have to go by the new growth. The plant looks over watered, though. How often, how much, and at what pH are you watering?

TreeFarmerCharlie said:

The yellow leaves will never get better so you just have to go by the new growth. The plant looks over watered, though. How often, how much, and at what pH are you watering?

Click to expand...

I was watering once every 2 days, however, when I thought it was nitrogen deficiency I gave it liquid fertilizer diluted in liquid so I increased the frequency at which I watered. I also thought it was overwatering and didn't give water for 2 days now, and the plant is not getting better.

biscroto said:

I was watering once every 2 days, however, when I thought it was nitrogen deficiency I gave it liquid fertilizer diluted in liquid so I increased the frequency at which I watered. I also thought it was overwatering and didn't give water for 2 days now, and the plant is not getting better.

Click to expand...

Unless you are only giving it a tiny amount of water, you are over watering. See the plants in the animation below? This is an animation of 5 days of growth. They were each given 1L of water the day before the first frame and didn’t need water until the day after the last frame (6 days between watering). When the plants get larger you will need to water them more frequently but, when they are young, I don’t water them until I see the leaves go limp like wet rags so I can get a feeling of how long I need to go between watering. For example, now that I know these plants took 6 days, I’ll start watering them every 5 days. Then I’ll shorten up the interval once the plants show they are going through the water faster. As long as you don’t let them go without water, for too long, they will come right back. It’s also less damaging to the plants to under water than to over water.

ok thank you, I guess I'll wait a couple more days without watering and see if things improve.

I forgot to include the animation so I just added it.

So here’s the update, I waited a few days and then I watered, after that I water once every 5/6 days, however the plant never seemed to get better. Today I decided to throw the plant away as it was basically dead, and that’s when I saw its root system like in the picture. However I remember when transplanting the root system was much much bigger, what could have caused this?

Do your containers have the ability to drain. You should also add some perlite to your growing medium. It not only helps with drainage, it will help prevent compaction. Perlite is the white specs that you see in TreeFarmerCharlie image

Use a smaller container to start your plants.

Water it until water comes out the bottom and then WAIT until the pot is light (dry soil) before watering again.

If you just use a little water then the roots don't go anywhere. If you keep it soaked all the time then the roots rot.