Veggie Ideas, Tips & Guides

How does a kitchen gardener choose what to grow? It’s about balancing quite a complex set of variables, which include the space and time available, the local climate and soil, the gardener’s skill level and what they like to eat. That last one is, itself, quite a complicated topic as culture plays a significant role. There are many thousands of edible plants on the planet; most people only eat a small number and grow fewer still.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, NASA astronaut Steve Swanson has been doing some gardening on the International Space Station, growing ‘Outredgeous’ red romaine lettuce in the new VEGGIE gardening system. This inaugural experiment, called Veg-01, is partly a test of the hardware and partly to see whether space-grown crops will be safe to eat. After all his hard work, Steve doesn’t get to eat his lettuce – it has to be returned to Earth for testing. If the lettuce is proved safe, a second batch of lettuce can be grown and eaten later in the year. This would be the first mouthful of ‘homegrown’ food to be consumed in space, and NASA have produced a great video explaining the VEGGIE project:

Header image: Good enough to eat – ‘Outredgeous’ lettuce grown under pink lights on the International Space Station. NASA, CC BY-SA

It’s hard to imagine anyone being more excited about eating lettuce than the three astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were yesterday, when they tucked into the first leaves of space-grown lettuce they’ve been allowed to eat. Despite having to sanitise the leaves first, with citric-acid-based, food-safe, antibacterial wipes (yummy!), they broke out the oil and vinegar and tucked in with gusto. They even thanked Mission Control and the scientists for giving them the opportunity to take part in this payload mission, and saved some veggies for the Russian cosmonauts who were outside on a spacewalk at harvest time.

If you’re currently tending lettuce plants, then you have something in common with the crew on board the International Space Station (ISS). They’re testing NASA’s new Vegetable Production System – affectionately known as ‘Veggie’. At 11.5 inches by 14.5 inches, Veggie is the largest plant growth chamber to have been blasted into space, and was developed by Orbital Technologies Corp.

Header image: Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage leaves prior to harvest aboard the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA

Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores gardening on Earth… and beyond! In this episode, Emma recaps important spacecraft Arrivals and Departures and learns about growing nutrients and medicines in space. There’s a new plant experiment running on the International Space Station, and exciting news from ESA.

Hello! Welcome to Gardeners off World. The big news for space gardeners this week is that NASA has determined that the salads grown in Veggie are safe to eat. And a team of Russian researchers have developed a prototype for an orbital greenhouse. The Orbital Biological Automatic Module includes smart lighting to accelerate plant growth, specialised hydroponics, automated irrigation and harvesting solutions. It could be heading to the International Space Station (ISS) – “Humanity’s home in Low Earth Orbit” – in the next few years.

Back at the beginning of December, I mentioned that astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) were hoping to have flowers in bloom for the new year. After successfully growing a second crop of lettuce in the Veggie growing system on board, they were trying their hand at something more complicated. Coaxing a plant into flowering in space has been done before, but it’s trickier than just growing leaves – but it’s something we’re going to have to crack if we want to be space farmers. We need flowers before we can grow fruits and grains, and we also need to be able to produce seeds in space if living away from the Earth is to be sustainable.

Hello, and welcome to Gardeners off World! On 15 February, the NG-13 cargo ship blasted off from NASA Wallops on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). It arrived on 18 February, where NASA astronaut Drew Morgan caught it with the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores gardening on Earth… and beyond! Emma’s guest on this week’s show is Dr Gioia Massa, a Project Scientist at the NASA Kennedy Space Center, working on the Veggie growing system on the International Space Station. Gioia talks about the challenges of growing plants in space, those blooming space zinnias, and when we might see astronauts eating their first space tomato!

Welcome to a special Valentine’s edition of Gardeners off World, where love is definitely in the recycled air!

It’s time for Gardeners off World, the only publication aimed at would-be interplanetary gardeners – or as I like to call it, A Giant Leap for Growkind

Welcome to Gardeners off World, my weekly round-up of the exciting world of interplanetary gardening!

I was scrolling through Twitter recently when I spotted something in a picture of the Veggie growth chamber on the ISS that I hadn’t noticed before – there’s a triangular plaque at the back.

NASA’s latest Space to Ground video includes some lovely images of the Veggie PONDS experiment that’s currently running on the International Space Station. Starting from 00:44, you can see images of the Veggie PONDS modules, radishes and chile peppers that were grown in the Advanced Plant Habitat, the PONDS modules installed in both Veggie units, and a nice clear view of the PONDS modules.

Emma the Space Gardener is back with a round-up of recent space gardening news. Exciting stuff has been happening on the ISS, where green-fingered space gardener Mike Hopkins has been pricking out seedlings and harvesting crops from Veggie.

In January 2016, Astronaut Scott Kelly wowed the world below with his space zinnias. But what happened next?

Later this year, when the XROOTS experiment comes to an end, NASA’s Veggie growing system will be starting a new challenge. VEG-05 is a long-awaited trial of whether we can grow tomatoes in space – in this case, the dwarf variety Red Robin.

Watering plants in space is a bit tricky, and something NASA is still working on.In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener explores one of the designs they’ve been perfecting. The Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System (PONDS) is a Tupperware-based upgrade to the Veggie growing system.

Artemis I may be getting all of the attention right now, but on the International Space Station, the crew has grown a crop of radishes in XROOTS, and sowed tomatoes!

Over the last few years, it has become increasingly apparent that we are not alone. I not referring to aliens; I’m talking about the fact that each and every human being comes complete with their own microbiome – a collection of microbes that they take with them wherever they go. For example, if we move home, it only takes about 24 hours for your microbiome to overwrite the previous owners left behind. 

Header image: the launch of NASA SpaceX Crew-5 to the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA

Getting a plant payload into space is rarely straightforward. In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener chats with Dr Carl Carruthers, who started out sending his own research projects into space and then became Chief Scientist at Nanoracks. There he worked on projects to send palm tree seeds to the International Space Station for the UAE and to design a kit to turn school kids into space farmers. 

Have you looked in your fridge lately? What food items do you discard most often? Do you have any vegetables or herbs that might be a little past their prime? In the United States, nearly half of all food produced is never eaten; about half of that comes from households, consists of fruits and vegetables, and adds up to about $150 a month wasted. Just because a fruit or vegetable isn’t perfect or might be riper than we prefer, that doesn’t mean it’s unsafe or inedible. Often, our first thought is to discard it into the garbage, but are there other options?

Hector Sanchez

Move over, red tomatoes. There’s a new tomato in town, and it’s promising to be even healthier than its already uber-healthy red counterpart: Meet the purple tomato.

Okra, referred to by the botanical name Abelmoschus esculentus or sometimes Hibiscus esculentus, is a member of the Malvaceae, or mallow family, that includes cotton, hibiscus, and hollyhocks.It is thought to have origins in ancient Egypt an

What is not to love about arugula?This peppery leafy plant is my all-time favorite salad green, a