Sleeping in a sauna, bold move.

Sorted my sockets into labeled bins last year and cut my brake job time in half too, pure chaos before that.

That part about the line being six inches out and the plant drowning on top while drying out below makes sense for the water problem, but yellow spotted leaves turning up in ten days of better watering sounds more like the blight was real and the deep soak just helped the plant fight it off. Blight spores don't need a wet stem to take hold, they just need wet leaves and warm nights, which a shallow drip line would actually make worse by keeping the surface soaked. Two plants bouncing back doesn't rule out disease, it might just mean the strong ones outgrew it once they got proper water.