Coming in hundreds of species, choosing the right Philo plant for your home can be quite challenging, but not anymore! Here are some of the best philodendron plant varieties you can include in your rooms!
21.08.2023 - 11:53 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
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.
The dirt on growing plants off-world
The first step on the journey was an experiment to determine whether plants could grow in Moon or Mars soil. But there’s a fairly fundamental issue at the heart of that question: we don’t have any. NASA has some samples of Moon soil (regolith, strictly speaking) that the Apollo moonwalkers brought back to Earth. Obviously, they don’t have enough to go around planting gardens in it. And we haven’t even tried to bring samples back from Mars yet, although a sample return mission is on the cards.
So scientists who would like to carry out experiments on extraterrestrial soil have to use simulants. Our off-world explorations have told us a fair amount about the mineral composition of the Moon and the Mars (at least in the places we’ve investigated), and researchers have found that there are soils on Earth that can stand in for them. Martian soil simulants tend to be made from volcanic areas on Earth (such as Hawaii); apparently, the Moon is more like Arizona. For these experiments, Wamelink got his hands on some JSC-1a (Mars-like simulant) and JSC1-1a (Moondust simulant) and used some reasonably nasty soil from beneath the Rhine river as a nutrient-poor Earth-based control soil.
“To work in this soil was very special. Nobody, not even NASA, could tell us what would happen, even just by simply adding water.”
(This wasn’t the first time plants were grown in lunar soil, and I blogged about the early experiments a while back.)
Analysis of Moon and Mars soils suggests that they have all of the
Coming in hundreds of species, choosing the right Philo plant for your home can be quite challenging, but not anymore! Here are some of the best philodendron plant varieties you can include in your rooms!
Discover the allure of the Pink Carrot – a vibrant and eye-catching twist on the traditional orange variety you know and love. Offering a burst of flavors and a unique color palette, Pink Carrots not only add visual appeal to your culinary creations but also come loaded with a unique set of nutrients that can level up your health game.
Invite feelings of happiness, joy, and enthusiasm by introducing orange color to your home. The brilliant way to do this is to grow these spectacular Orange Houseplants and brighten up your living space!
Header image: The greenhouse at McMurdo Station in Antarctica is the only source of fresh food during winter. Eli Duke/Flickr, CC BY-SA
A little while ago, I told you about a preliminary experiment that Dr Wieger Wamelink and his team at the University of Wageningen conducted. It demonstrated that it is possible to grow plants in simulated Mars and Moon soils.
Growing lettuce on the Moon is a step closer, as a French start-up has successfully grown lettuce in simulated lunar soil.
Last weekend, as the temperatures soared, I found a certain amount of solace in learning more about how plants are being grown in Antarctica – the coldest place on Earth.
Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores gardening on Earth… and beyond! In this episode, Emma talks to analog astronaut Elliot Roth, who recently spent two weeks in a simulated Moon mission. Find out why Elliot thinks we should pack algae when we leave Earth, and why we’d be better settling on Venus than Mars.
Hello, and welcome to Gardeners Off World! I am writing this from lockdown, and you’re probably reading it from lockdown, too. The good news for UK gardeners is that it’s still OK for most people to do some gardening – and that includes people who grow their food on an allotment.
On 24th July 1969, at 16:50 UTC, Apollo 11 splashed down in the north Pacific, about 900 miles south west of Hawaii.
ESA’s ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Centre) held their annual open day over the weekend. One of the projects on display was part of the MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) project, which is investigating ways to use microbiological cells, chemicals, catalysts, algae, bacteria and plants to process waste and deliver continuous supplies of oxygen, water and food.
Welcome to Gardeners off World, my weekly round-up of the exciting world of interplanetary gardening!