Don't mess with it too much. The plant will do what your substrate and watering/fertilization habits provide.
in future make your substrate fluffier with more perlite or similar amendment. in high water capacity (soil / sphagnum peat moss) you want 1:1 (50%). in something like coco you only need 2:1 (33%). Better roots = better growth.
anyone telling you to only water a portion of the pot is not helping you. When you irrigate you always make sure the entire thing gets wet. If constituted properly, "overwatering" from this simple act is impossible. Wait for top 1" to dry. Repeat. Anything that varies from this too much is only going to cause problems. The wet-dry cycle ensures a couple things. First, it's always moister deeper into pot, so roots grow toward moisture -- it is not a thought or fefeling of the plant. it is physically built into how roots grow. The greater level of moisture in any particular direction will cause it to go that way. When you water superficially or incmpletely, you get more superficial roots, which if uncovered at all and exposed to light differentiate into useless stems in short order. Not watering the entire thing also causes dry pockets, which if they repeat and you get that same ebb and flow of moisture evaporating around edges, you will get nutrient buildup in those zones over time.
Keep it simple. Water. let it dry. Repeat. feel the weight of the pot, you can more easily tell when it is ready for irrigation.
don't dig holes in future or put skewers into it unelss there's some extreme context that warrants it.. just going to tear up roots and damage the plant with minimum impact from it. This is young so not a bunch of roots.. no harm; no foul. Less is more... what we do should be minimal. let the plant do the work. constitute your substrate better... things shouldjust happen on their own with little input from us.
It's not that bad for day 16. It's outdoors and early in your growing season, maybe a bit cold at night? these are not optimal growing conditions. If you haven't begun fertilization, you could probably start with 1/4 stregth for soil nutes, but i think this is a matter of how strong the sun is at the moment as much as anything else.
