Hi shan - the most common cause of leaf yellowing is excessive watering. It is a common mistake we all make now and then and unfortunately more plants die from excessive watering than will ever die from too little water. Roots need air as well as moisture and excessive water suffocates young roots causing the leaves to yellow and die off. Can I ask why you water daily? Do the plants appeared wilted? Is the soil 5-6 inches down, where the roots are, good and dry to the touch? Most of the things you list usually need little more than an inch or inch & 1/2 of water a week, including rain, unless they are root-bound in a container or it is very, very hot. So I think most will agree that while daily watering might be needed in August, it is seldom needed at your current temperatures. Container plants will, of course dry out faster, than those in the garden and need more frequent attention. It is hard for us to know if your "topsoil" is allowing proper drainage because topsoil means many different things to different folks - only you can tell - but keep in mind that peat will retain some water too. Did you use regular potting soil in the containers so they will drain well? Best bet I think is to try cutting way back on your watering and see if the plants don't improve. Check the soil - stick your finger well down in it - before you water - or wait until the plants begin to droop a bit. Better to droop than drown. ;) Good luck.

ilikewinter: I'm not an expert on strawberries but since I empathize with you because of the care you've given your container plants, I'm going to hazard a GUESS. Strawberries do not like sun and heat. Both strawberries and spinach like coolish weather rather than blazing sun. These are the very same two plants of yours that suffered in the heat which tends to corroborate that sun and/or heat may be the problem. Spinach is known to bolt to seed when the weather heats up. It is considered to be a cool weather crop. The fact that the damage happened during high 80s temperatures also tends to corroborate heat as the problem. If your weather cools down and the strawberry plants come back, this would also tend to corroborate heat as the culprit. Also, your south facing balcony gets the hottest sun of all - the blazing afternoon shake and bake without the shake. I'm in the L.A. area in Southern California. About 50 miles north of here the coastal communities of Oxnard and Camarillo are prime strawberry growing areas. Miles of strawberry fields. The reason is that the weather never gets too much above 85 F because the Pacific Ocean moderates the climate. Most of the spring time temperatures, which is the time of year when strawberries are grown there, are in the 60s and 70s. Fog and overcasty type weather fosters the strawberries. Other coastal areas that get hotter don't have the large strawberry operations. Oxnard and Camarillo are unique in this respect. So some kind of simple shading device might help. 30% shade cloth simply fastened to and draped over your balcony railing would be simple and economic. You don't need much material. Old window screening (double layer) or muslin scraps might also work. You just want to tone down the direct sunlight. On overcast or rainy days, you could just flip the half of the, say, shade cloth that covers the pot over to the other side (the outside) of the railing. Also, from the wide shot picture, the direct sunlight hits the pots. This heats the pots and, in turn, the soil inside them which can burn the roots. There's a big difference between roots in the ground and roots in a container. Some of my black nursery pots got so hot in the summer that I could not touch them. Terra cotta color will heat up whether it is terra cotta clay or plastic. After I discovered this the hard way, I spray painted my pots white. I used a spray can paint formulated for plastic from Home Depot. Haven't lost a plant since. In lieu of painting the pots, you could just put skirts around the sides which receive direct sun rays in order to totally shade the pot itself. I mention again that the foregoing is a guess. Tony

Hi and thank you for your answers. I sprayed the raspberries with copper only once a few days ago. The strawberries that are ill are in a different part of the garden; all my plants are in pots. I think that a few weeks ago I overwatered the raspberries. They were staying in full sun and the leaves began to dry out, so I moved them in a part shade location and didn't water them as much as before. Maybe if I use the Neem fungicide once a week it will be ok, although I don't think so. Today more leaves are wilted. Thank you again for your answers. Anna

I'm no expert on strawberries, but you haven't gotten an answer, so I did some searching. I found no 'quick and easy' link to send you to, but it looks like you might be dealing with verticillium wilt. Pulled together from a number of different sites, the early symptoms start with brown and curling edges on older leaves. The petioles may turn reddish. As it develops further in the older leaves, the browning also occurs along the main veins of the leaf, and progresses until the leaf dies. As these oldest leaves get worse and die, the somewhat younger ones are getting the brown-curled-edge symptom. It looks like you have cut off some older dead leaves, and the leftover petioles look red. Did these older dying leaves show browning along the veins as they got worse? The sources say that the new leaves might be a little stunted, but otherwise can look normal, until they get to be the somewhat older leaves, and the disease progresses.... Once the plant is infected, the roots and stem are also being damaged unseen, and it eventually kills the entire plant. Best I can do. If this is what the problem is, the prognosis is not good. It's a soil-born disease that, once present, is nearly impossible to cure. The "remedy" suggested everywhere is to plant strawberry varieties that are verticillium-resistant.... If this is what it is, throw them away, but not in the compost. The same fungus infects many other vegetables and ornamentals, including a few trees. Wish I had better news. Hoping I'm wrong.