Sounds to me like you’ve achieved your goal for nature but nature doesn’t give a fuck about your goal.

Wasps are pollinators too

if you live in a place with a definite winter/summer cycle, then if you start with aphid & ant control early on (when it's still cooler) you'll have better luck keeping them away. I do realize it's too late in the season now for that, but it's something to think about for next year.

a spray with neem oil + castille soap works wonders repelling ants, aphids and mites. though, judging from your photos, it might be very limited in effectiveness. i bought a large spray bottle from the hardware store, mixed up the neem oil (a couple of tablespoons?) and the castille soap (about the same amount - I have a huge bottle of dr bronner's), filled up the rest of the bottle with water, and I keep it out with my outdoor plants. I live in an apartment and the concrete steps are the only space i have to grow. every spring, most anything i grow outside will get attacked by aphids as it starts to get warm. spraying the undersides of all the leaves early in the morning kills them. do it every morning for a few days, spritzing during the day if you see them bunch up. i try not to do it longer than 5-6 days before giving a break from the neem oil. if it ever gets to that point, i take the entire pots out onto the sidewalk and using a gentle jetstream of water, I'll shoot the aphids off.

flowering plants will generally attract hornets/wasps no matter what you do. but, if you don't bug them, they won't get aggressive usually. and even though they're al the assholes of the air, they are still important pollinators.

diatomaceous earth works great against external pests like ants too. spread it around in a light dusting where you see them come in, that will work better than making something like a "circle of salt"... ants aren't hollywood demons haha. it'll keep out some beetles too and other critters. DE is safe around your cat too, hell, it's used in baking too.

so okay a lot to unpack here

but let's keep in mind that "nature" isn't sleeping beauty, it's animals and plants all trying to get one over on one another. They don't give a shit.

Second, like, agriculture isn't nature. It's highly managed systems out of any kind of ecological context. So mixing you pot in with nasturtium? Maybe get off of tiktok for gardening advice.

Pick: Do you want to grow plants for human products or do you want a slice of the natural world?

If you want to grow for production, out doors indoors doesn't matter. The name of the game is sanitation sanitation sanitation. And you can manage that in a mixed system.

Second, your "mites" aren't mites, they are aphids. I can't believe I have to explain this to a weed grower. Ants will move aphids around plants, effectively using them as their own form of animal agriculture. So relying on spraying doesn't solve the primary issue there. You will need to spray to get the superficial stuff under control if you want to, but getting the ants under control is the only real way to control the aphids. The ants are far better at spreading aphids than you are at managing them. Beat the ants and then beat the aphids.

As far as beating the ants. Figure out what species they are first. Plenty ants will die back a bit from a chemical spray, but then come back with a vengeance a few weeks later because stress causes them to make more queens.

What can you do? Take it all as a lesson, take some time to clear you mind about what you want to do, and give it another go after cleaning up the mess. The outdoor pot is prob unrecoverable and will be swaggy after anyways. And it's not clear why you are growing. Figure out what you want from growing and focus on doing that effectively.

If you want nature, that comes with slugs and wasps and ants. And mixed systems can be effective (my garden has probably a hundred different species). But it takes a long time and a lot of experience to have the knowledge to be able to identify issues early and respond appropriately for each plant in a mixed system.

You are trying to recreate that bit of nature that is useful to you on ~4 sqm of balcony, using a highly technologized approach. It doesn't work like that. Please bear in mid that I read all your posts with interest and sometimes fascination. But you cannot only take that part of nature that suits you, and will it to work. I've got a small garden and planted some trees and a row of hornbeams as hedge. Did not tend to them over some years due to issues. And a nice little nature reserve developed with a ton of small birds that seek refuge in the growth developed, taking care of my insect "problem", plus the plants lowering the summer heat significantly. So probably you've got to rethink your approach.

Well, it seems like the ants are protecting the pests. Deal with them first.

I use cinnamon (cheap, bulk, no need to use good stuff) to repel them. The cinnamon burns, and acts like diatomaceous earth, which is painful if not lethal to insects. Make a little barrier of it to keep the ants out. You can also use borax bait traps to deal with them (orgainic only, I know) but those traps work really well. I would avoid them if the ants are actually living inside your planters and you intend to eat what you are growing out there.

I would also suggest seeing about putting up some insect netting, or screening in the balcony once you have the infestation under control.

That is a very cute master gardener supervisor!

Have you tried buying fully grown lady bugs and unleashing hell? I assume ants can only take them over when they are larvae and few in numbers?

Or maybe build an indoor lady bug tent of some sorts and become a lady bug whisperer?

Not an experienced gardener by any measure myself only casual home grown plants. Neem oil did not help me much with aphids I would say, apart from smelling bad.

Some notes:

• slugs and snails hate traveling on copper, if you isolate the area early (before they come), you can keep them away with a barrier of copper foil

• tobacco deters and heated + filtered tobacco water kills insects, aphids are relatively easy to kill with "green soap" spray (direct translation, I don't know the English name of the substance)

Now as for wasps, I would consider a netting of some sort. Most likely, it would keep other kinds of insects out too, but aphids are probably too small to keep out with nets. If there's too much, I would control their numbers with soap.

If you're rocking a balcony garden, I have to assume you live in a food desert. In that case, you should feel proud for giving nature what it needs in your area: food.

I replaced my entire lawn with flowers, herbs, and even put a pond in the ground. I get tons of flies and wasps, but I get the benefit of natural predators: birds, opossums, etc.

Try to see if you can get nature to manage itself. I recommend a water source if you don't have one...maybe even a suet feeder.

If you have enough space to lay down, and the only real issue here is that your nature garden is too natural for you to sit out there and enjoy it, I'd go for the easiest solution and buy a one-person pop up mosquito net tent and just enjoy the nature from the inside of a mesh bubble. All the fun, very much less of the pain, crawling, buzzing, etc.

something like this:

Oh man I’m sorry to read this; know that you’re an inspiration and resource for many, not just me.

I don’t know as much as you, but I have found it useful to use a good high pressure hose to wash bugs off my outdoor plants. Do it a few times and in my experience they find other places to settle, out of my way.

Also as much as we try to keep things “natural” there is very little natural about the way we grow plants. Watering, fertilizer, plant density, domesticated non-native plants, invasive pests… If you need to take steps like neem oil or pyrethrin to maintain the balance, that’s ok too.

looks like you need an anteater, frogs or toads -> less ants -> ladybugs can do their thing like in the last pic

Look up what ladybug lava look like... Unless you are already aware that you have some photos of ladybugs in that set.

I’m not an organic gardener, but I know the sting of having my hard work ruined by pests. Are you opposed to any sort of treatment to kill/dissuade insects, or are you into the idea, but only if it’s organic.

If you’re in the second boat, check out https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinosad

I’m a big fan and it’s very safe for everything except insects. Sorry you’re struggling and hope things improve.

Rescue Trapstik traps are pretty good for dealing with wasps (put them in places that get direct sunlight during the afternoon). Not sure how to deal with the non-flyers though.

Ugh, man fuck ants and aphids, I feel your pain. Pests are well… pests, and are never fun to deal with. I got a huge infestation of aphids on most of my indoor houseplants and had to spray the heck out of them with what was unfortunately not organic Captain Jack’s Deadbug. It did take care of the problem, though, but was a whole ordeal. That said, as much of a pain as it can be it may be time to step back & evaluate starting from scratch. If there are some plants that are highly valued, keep them & spray away, but if there are some you don’t care as much about, it may be easier to dispose of them than to fight off the damn critters.

Either way, best of luck to you!!

There are organic pest control measures that you can take.

Diatomaceous earth around the base of plants and basically anywhere you don't want bugs to cross.

A saucer full of beer will attract and kill slugs.