Planting makes the crop thirsty. The tool for that is the tabo, a dipper. Hold E on the faucet until the tabo is full, then water the plant. A plant that has had enough water can say This plant is happy.
The game page already says to water crops and wait. The tabo is how that water gets from the faucet to the plot.
Using water can open a bill. In a release-week session an unpaid-bill warning appeared after watering, and the bill had to be paid. The peso amount is whatever the bill says at the time. There is no published rate per dipper.
A larger tabo is sold later in the supply shop. Sprinklers from that same shop can be placed near crops, but some tiles reject them, and no sprinkler lists a published speed bonus. See tools and sprinklers.
If you leave the game, crops still grow. That offline growth is separate from standing at the faucet. Sleeping inside the house is a third case, with its own 1.5x prompt, covered in upgrades, sleep, and offline growth.