Having Problems With My Container Garden

Hi everyone,

I am on my second year of gardening and I currently live in a apartment so I can only have pots right now (I'm working on getting some land). Everything was going well until about early June here in Appalachia and then a lot of my plants started turning a bunch of not green colors lol. I suspected fungus so I tried a copper fungicide, it seemed to work but its still there. I also suspect I have over fertilized some of the plants with the used of synthetic fertilizers and so I am switching to completely organic now. I have some pictures of all of them below and I could use some help as I have tried everything and cant seem to have any improvements. I added some pictures of my strawberries, lavender, haskhaps, and my Fig tree. I was successful with some of my other plants but not these, I suspect calcium deficiency for the one strawberry plant.

What should I do to fix some of these problems? What can I do to prevent disease in the future? Any tips?

Hey Nic,
I have been gardening only in containers for about 10 years because the ground where I live is not really suitable for anything other than desert plants.
My first question is what are you using for soil? The health of your plants starts with healthy soil.
When I first started I was using different variations on the self-watering containers that I made from pairs of 5-gallon buckets and modified plastic storage bins. I bought a high quality OMRI certified potting soil by Kelloggs and amended it with compost, blood meal, bone meal, coconut quoir, and vermiculite. I have never used any chemical fertilizers or amendments.

I have since expanded my containers and done away with the self-watering types and just use either resin pots or glazed ceramics.
I get that browning on my strawberries, and it isn't from calcium deficiency. I know this because I have the hardest water in the world! Usually, my strawberries don't turn brown leaves until the second year though. Yours look pretty young. Are they getting full sun? Strawberries like a lot of sunshine.

Some of your plants look like they have some pest problems. Are you seeing any strands of white stuff on the underside of leaves and leaf stems? Those are aphids. Some neem oil or just soapy water in a spray bottle will take care of those until the green lace-wings or ladybugs move in.

Thank you for your response, as for my soil I am using a cheap soil that has a lot of wood chip matter in it. I have had success in previous years with it and I usually add organic fertilizer with blood and bone meal into it to help, it’s really not too bad of a soil and doesn’t compact.

I am not surprised by that either because I have super hard water here too, which is why it was the last thing I had in mind. I do have some of those white webs but I always spray it with soapy water when I see it and it helps get rid of them for a bit. I haven’t seen aphids in my garden or ants surprisingly.

The strawberries are first years that I bought as bareroots this spring. They get a lot of sun but a bit less so than the other ones that lack the spots.
They are still producing but I’m just a bit concerned.