Attack of the Killer Space Tomatoes! GotG26

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.

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

Right now, 200 miles above your head, chilli peppers are growing on the International Space Station (ISS).

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.

Everywhere I go lately, I seem to be tripping over the idea of allelopathy. The amaranths in the picture above might look like pretty, harmless and useful plants – but they’re hiding a darker secret. During our class field trip to the Eden Project in December I discovered that they produce chemicals that can inhibit the growth of other plants nearby. This is allelopathy – chemical warfare that gives plants a competitive edge over their neighbours.

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.

“Every rose has its thorns”, or so the song goes. Except, it’s not true, as we shall see in a minute.

Header image: NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio uses a video camera to photograph the Ant Forage Habitat. Image credit: NASA

This is a ‘green and pleasant land’, due at least in part to our national obsession with lawns

At the beginning of the year, I set up a new mission in the AeroGarden, growing two peppers (Popti and Redskin) and a tomato (Veranda Red). Ten days later, I had two tomato seedlings, which I had to thin to one. The peppers were a bit slower, but by 19th January they had germinated (and been thinned) too.

Just over a year ago, when we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, I talked about the lack of diversity in space and mentioned Mary Jackson. In 2016, the movie Hidden Figures shared the stories of Mary Jackson and two other Black female mathematicians – Katherine Johnson and, Dorothy Vaughan. They worked at NASA when a ‘computer’ still meant a person carrying out mathematical calculations. The film is based on a book by Margot Lee Shetterly, which I am reading at the moment. The book offers a more detailed and accurate account of the prejudice these women (and others) had to overcome.

Can we grow food on the Moon or Mars? That was the question that started Dr Wieger Wamelink, ecologist and exobiologist at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, on a research quest in 2013.