French astronaut will grow marigolds on the ISS

Potatoes are one of the most popular vegetables, likely because of their versatility. Not only can you prepare potatoes in a myriad of ways, but there are so many unusual potato varieties to try. From russet to fingerling in hues of red, yellow, white and even purple, there’s a unique potato variety out there you will enjoy. Some unusual potatoes might be considered gourmet potato varieties, while still others are de rigueur, but all of them are delicious. Keep reading to learn about unusual potato varieties and which ones you should grow.

Header image: Mizuna lettuce growing aboard the International Space Station before being harvested and frozen for return to Earth. Image credit: NASA 

Marigolds aren’t really in fashion at the moment – their simple flowers and brash colours don’t seem to fit in modern gardens. But they’re worth growing in a kitchen garden for two reasons. The first is that these simple flowers are the sort that bees and other beneficial insects love. And the second reason is that marigolds are known to be pest-repelling plants – good companions.

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

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. 

My mission is to grow new things, in new ways.

A reliable French-style bread machine recipe, from the Logik Stainless Steel Bread Maker instruction booklet.

Growing lettuce on the Moon is a step closer, as a French start-up has successfully grown lettuce in simulated lunar soil.

One of the stories that I read as a child that has stayed with me is The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. For a long time I had a copy on my bookshelf, but when I had the urge to read it last week I discovered that was no longer the case. Fortunately it’s easy enough to find a free copy, particularly as it’s part of the new range of free Amazon Kindle Classics, which you can read via the free Amazon Kindle app – you don’t need an actual Kindle.

Header image: The prototype space greenhouse developed by the TIME SCALE project showed that it is possible to recycle nutrients and water to grow food. Image credit – Karoliussen

2017 is the 100th anniversary of the start of the Cottingley fairies story, a hoax which entrances the UK to this day. Cousins Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright faked photos of fairies at the bottom of the garden, intended to be a practical joke on their grown-ups. When Elsie’s mother showed the photos to the local Theosophical Society, she set in motion a chain of events that led Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to declare the photographs to be authentic. He wrote an article on fairy life for The Strand magazine in November 1920, and fairy fever gripped the nation. Conan Doyle later wrote a book on the subject, The Coming of the Fairies – The Cottingley Incident.