Plants Weathering Wild Weather

The nice thing about growing plants indoors is that you have fewer problems with pests, and you don't have to worry about how they will weather wild weather. 
Here is a collage of some of our house plants. We have usual house plants like ferns, pothos, and zz plants, but we also keep herbs, vegetables, and fruits as house plants, too.
Our Wild Weather
A few days ago Hurricane Ian swung across the state of Florida and hit 🎯 us here on the Space Coast. Here is a screenshot that my husband took when he tracked the storm.
We weren't hit anywhere near as bad as our neighbors on the West Coast of Florida, but we still had sustained high winds for several days.

Weather Impacts
Our young dwarf banana trees were stuck in the ground outside during the storm. Their leaves quickly shredded in the high winds of the storm, but they will recover. Here is a photo of our banana trees in the storm.
I left two pepper plants outdoors in a protected corner of a patio. One of them dropped most of its leaves.
The other was mostly in good shape after the storm. Here is a photo.
Pests 
But both outdoor pepper plants are covered with a bad infestation!
Here is a photo of the backside of a leaf that is coated in mealy bugs and white flies.
Here is a picture that shows a mature critter on the stem.
Yuck! These will take some work to remove so they do not kill our plants.
I will wipe the leaves and stems, then spray them with an insect spray that is designed for plants.

I initially thought these were another pest but a friend was quick to correct me. Here's an illustrated guide to common plant pests: 

For biocontrol, I will plant some Sweet Alyssum a few feet away from these plants because these critters may prefer those sweet flowers over the peppers. 
Here are two children holding Sweet Alyssum seeds.
We bought these seeds from the store. Here is what their seed packets look like. The flowers will be little clusters of white, pink, and purple flowers.
Outdoor growing can have a lot of uncertainty. That's why we like growing some of our plants indoors, too. That way we still have something alive when the weather gets wild. Also, plants clean the air so our indoor air is fresh.

Indoor Growing 
We have one indoor chile plant, which is overall quite healthy. Here is a picture of it in the Aerogarden hydroponic system.
Here is a flower.
Here is a green chile pepper fruit.
Now, it's important to know that the indoor environment is not perfect. Something odd happens when growing pepper plants under LED lighting. Some of their leaves are wrinkled with raised spots!
Here is a picture of the top side of an affected leaf.
Here is a picture of the underside of the same leaf. See all those spots?
This is a physiological response because they aren't getting enough Ultraviolet light. This is not caused by a virus, pest, or other disease agent, and doesn't impact fruiting. I usually remove the few leaves that look like this to encourage fresh new growth.

Do you want to grow pepper plants indoors with us? Join the Challenge with NASA!

 Here is a list of other blog posts we wrote about our peppers:








Storytime
Do you want to read a story book about a badger who saves seeds, plants a garden, and then there's a big storm?
Grandma and Grandpa sent us this book right before our big storm, and we love it so much that we decided to read it for you. Here is a picture of the cover.
Badger's Perfect Garden by Marsha Diane Arnold, illustrated by Ramona Kaulitzki. 
Here is a link to us reading this story on YouTube:

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