Are trees from outer space growing in British backyards?

When I woke up yesterday morning, it was misty. We’re approaching the middle of October, which is the usual time for the first frosts of autumn in my part of the UK. People in different areas are already reporting the arrival of the frosts on Twitter. This means it’s time for me to pop out into the garden and bring in my lemon tree (which I grew from a pip, several years ago). It has been enjoying the summer weather in the garden, but it’s only really hardy down to -10°C. I’ve nearly lost it a couple of times, and it has died right back to nothing, but somehow it always manages to come back.

Move over, Mark Watney, there’s a new space botanist heading for Mars! Ryan and I have just finished watching the new Netflix series Away, which follows (over 10 episodes) the quest of five international astronauts to be the first people to set foot on the red planet.

While we’re waiting for Tim Peake to blast off to the International Space Station (ISS) to begin his Principia mission, I thought it might be fun to have a look at the first Briton in space – Helen Sharman, who was also the first woman to visit the Mir space station, in 1991.

One of the great joys of spring is seeing trees leaf out and bloom. They bring so much joy, and do so much for us, and yet are rarely valued as they should be. In particular, ancient trees are wondrous, magical things. Impressive and complex structures, they have lots of nooks and crannies in which wildlife can find a home. As fungi feed on the tree they provide food for woodland creatures, and a hollowed out trunk provides shelter. Although ancient trees are in the final stage of their life, and technically in decline, they have a lot to give, and can go on living for a long time, depending on the species.

From the moment humans started to reach for the skies, we have used other species from Earth to test what’s safe and what happens to life away from its natural habitat on the planet’s surface. 

At 11 pm on Friday (BST, 18:01 EDT), SpaceX launched an uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). This Dragon capsule has been to the ISS twice before, making it the first to fly in space for a third time. This is the 18th SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract mission for NASA: CRS-18.

If we look out of our patio windows at dusk, we are sometimes lucky enough to spot a bat zooming around above the houses. We call it Cricket, although – to be fair – Cricket could be multiple individuals. It flies so fast it’s hard to keep track. In Feral, George Monbiot talks about the wonder we feel when we come face to face with wildlife like this. He feels it’s a transformative experience, and one that is now sadly lacking from our daily lives.

The morning after last week’s storms, our morning walk was littered with ‘conkers’, the large and shiny seeds of the Horse Chesnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). Ryan started picking some of the nicer ones up. “The people at work”, he said, “have been discussing whether or not conkers repel spiders. I’m going to try it.”

I don’t generally watch Gardeners’ World these days, but two weeks ago they broadcast a special edition (episode 20 in this year’s series) as part of the BBC’s Big British Asian Summer, exploring South Asian influences on British gardens. Monty Don ‘hosted’ the show from the stunning gardens of Europe’s first traditional Hindu temple, BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in London. The stonework for the temple itself was all carved in India, then brought to London to be assembled. Flowers, particularly the sacred lotus, are represented throughout the decorative motifs. Mountains of flowers are used in the temple’s religious ceremonies, and I was intrigued to learn that – in India – there are businesses based around recycling temple flowers into products such as incense sticks, soaps, and eco-packaging, to reduce their environmental impact. At the London temple, the gardens are a fusion of a European parterre-style design, with Indian motifs, colourful flowers, and a delightful lack of symmetry.

In Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars, Kate Greene talks about Shannon Lucid, the NASA astronaut who spent six months living on the Russian space station Mir. Shannon, it turns out, was a bookworm. During her stay, she read 50 books and improvised shelving from old food boxes, complete with straps to stop the books floating off. This was in 1996, a good decade before the invention of the Kindle, and so these were real books. She apparently chose titles with the highest word to mass ratio, since launch weight is a critical factor! Lucid left her library behind for future spacefarers, but it burned up when Mir was de-orbited in 2001.

Earlier this month, the Met Office announced that its weather radar was picking up something other than rain clouds – swarms of flying ants.

Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores cultivating the cosmos, planting planets and sowing seeds in space. The second episode of Gardeners of the Galaxy includes a look at the current state of plant experiments on the International Space Station, a rundown of the missions on their way to Mars and a sneak peek at the future of space chillies. And there’s a seed giveaway too!