hygiene

I did thorough cleanup on the balcony today, in case it helps. Removed EVERYTHING, swept all the corners and rinsed them out with a swash of bleach water too. Made sure all the extra pots and planters were cleaned out and bleached, tidied up in general. I was kind of hoping to find a forgotten handful of leaf litter in a corner or bottom of a pot, as that can harbor spider mites (been reading some articles...) because that would mean although I'm to blame for having poor hygiene around my plants, I could fix it by keeping things cleaner. No such luck really. I did sweep up enough old dirt from corners to partly fill a dustpan, that's all.

Feeling glum about balcony prospects this year. The only plants out there now are the boston fern and funky little resurrection plant. They don't ever seem affected. Also still out here two planters that used to have oregano (regrowing) and lemon balm (looks dead), and the pots that had nicotiana last year. I can't quite bring myself to throw them out as well (but I probably should)- they didn't quite look sickly last season, and have seedlings coming up now. So I've got mostly empty pots, empty planters, empty space. Put some away so I don't have to look at them.

Plan of action is to mist the at-risk and infested plants with water daily (especially the parsley and pepper), spray again tomorrow or the day after with bleach solution and neem oil, repeat it all in a week. If anything still looks bad after all that, just throw it out. Not risk anything by putting houseplants outside again. I have been through this too many times.

Well, at least I have the B garden now... went over there this morning and happy to see all my transplants are thriving, the forsythia looks a bit taller already, shrub cuttings still green, even the lenten rose seedlings are opening up new leaves. It was cheering.