bugs....the bane of my veggie garden's existence

This is not a good week.

Over the weekend noticed a couple bugs in my containers.  Those couple bugs have now turned into an infestation of my veggie garden, which is sadface because things were going SOOO good.  My basils were beginning to grow big leaves, my bell pepper and tomato pants were finally starting to get bigger and my zucchini was HUGE (still is I guess).

 Pictures above are healthy plants still - red bell pepper,  poppies, everything window box, and strawberry jar with huge zucchini in background.

After a lovely weekend including Cirque du Soleil (a postponed V-day gift) and camping and rafting, I came home to find more bugs.  Little red ones that I could barely see that seem to be living in the soil and little flying black ones that I thought were fruit flies.  Pictures are below, click on them to view larger size.

I looked up some info what the red bugs were and they seem to be spider mites.  Then I found some things on how I can make some home-made natural insecticide.  I put together a liquid concoction for the fruit flies and diluted milk in water to spray on the plants for the spider mites.

This didn't help.  I also tried putting another little diluted mixture of onion, garlic and cayenne pepper  into the soil as well which I read can help with spider mites but so far this doesn't seem to faze them.

Yesterday I called Portland Nursery (where I've gotten most of my stuff) to talk to one of my bf's friends.  She told me that the black bugs are probably not fruit flies but fungus gnats which come from/thrive in plants and soil that are overwatered.  Coincidentally my irrigation system had faltered the week before and was over-watering my plants so this made perfect sense.  Solution there: don't over water.  She also said it would help to see the little red bugs to make sure they are spider mites but that I can try organic soapy water which I had also read can help with spider mites.  So I did this too.  I read up on fungus gnats and saw that chunks of potato can attract the larvae so guess what - I put chunks of potato in my containers too (now taken out b/c I'm almost giving up).

This morning I woke up to find more of my plant leaves wilting and now have brown spots.  I'm wondering if the soapy mixture was too soapy and somehow burned the plants.  I don't know what's going on.  What I do know is that the bugs are still there.  I got my camera out this morning and decided to snap a couple (or more) shots.

Below from top -> bottom and left -> right are: spinach that had just sprouted, tomato plant, some basil, two pics of nasturtium to show brown spots and wilting, zucchini, kale that had sprouted, poppies that had just started growing leaves, and eggplants (still haven't picked which one shall stick around).

After looking closely at what I was sure were spider mites (see above) I'm now wondering if they are predatory mites which I somehow acquired (still no clue on this part).  Apparently predatory mites are faster than spider mites and have a more pear/teardrop shaped body with less hair.  That matches the bugs I see - they're fast little buggers.  The spider mites live more on the underside of leaves too - I haven't been able to see any of the mites on the leaves but I'm not sure if that's because I don't have a magnifying glass and they're just really hard to see, or if they are not actually there at all. 

So in conclusion - I'm sadface, really sadface.  I would like to make things better but I'm not sure if I can do that anymore.  If I end up trashing everything I won't be starting from seeds again - I will just get starter plants.

the end.