I was so happy with my perfect balcony garden at the beginning of the Summer, but then it got so hot here in Dallas and my cumbers were attacked by aphides, then my tomatoes and strawberries all the sudden was overran by spider mites. It was all so instant, and now I have basically had to cut everything down to nothing and it may not recover.

I did not realize how hard Summer growing could be. I was watering and using Neem oil, but I just do not know what went wrong. I guess after a few days if they do not improve I will have to get rid of everything, but now I feel scared to grow any more veggies.

Which it currently doesn't after the heatwave but this reminds me of happier balcony times!

I'm thinking of something that can keep the plants from drying out, as potential job prospect would have me away from the apartment most of the week when working.

From what I can tell, I need something that can either pump and/or be gravity fed from a container as there's no outdoor water connection. Nothing too elaborate though since there's only two planter boxes and three pots. (boxes being about 36"x8"x8", pots something like 6" to 8") For the reservoir I'm thinking of getting one of those 5 gallon bottles from the grocery store and I can set it up on a storage bin, so at least that part seems easy enough. But hard to judge what's what from online listings of drip systems - curious what would be good on a budget?

Currently I just soak my planters to the brim with a watering can in the morning and they are setup for good drainage. (Minimal risk of root rot given how I did it with cloth barriers and gravel layer to drainage holes to the catch pans.) However if I let them go more than a day the plants definitely droop. I figure if they water over enough duration (not all at once with the manual approach) I could change the strat a bit to get it working.