Header image: Mizuna lettuce growing aboard the International Space Station before being harvested and frozen for return to Earth. Image credit: NASA
21.08.2023 - 11:38 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
The last episode of 2022 is here, and it’s a good one! I’ve been talking with Amy Padolf and Carl Lewis from the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden about their citizen science/education project Growing Beyond Earth® (GBE). GBE is really something special, because it allows school students to collect data that influences which plants NASA grows in space.
02:42 How GBE started
04:13 How does GBE work?
05:24 What is GBE growing/testing this year?
06:31 Notable GBE successes
10:21 How to get involved in GBE
11:54 NASA/GBE mission patch competitions
13:01 The GBE mission patch
14:10 Carl chooses his fantasy space plant
16:12 Amy chooses her fantasy space plant
19:04 Space is for everyone!
If you want to follow GBE on Twitter (while it lasts!), they’re @GrowBeyondEarth.
You can read Scott Kelly’s thoughts on what the ISS smells like in Wired. If you want to know more about what’s growing on at Kennedy Space Center, you can listen to Gioia Massa in episode 10, Jacob Torres in episode 24 and Christina Johnson in episode 30, or check out their recent GBE event video.
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Hello, and welcome to episode 50 of Gardeners of the Galaxy, the podcast for all of the sentient beings in the Universe who have a passion for plants. I’m Emma the Space Gardener, and I’ll be your host as we explore gardening on Earth… and beyond!
It’s a very exciting time for space plants, as NASA has just started growing Red Robin tomatoes in Veggie on the International Space Station. They won’t be the first tomato plants in space, but this will be the first time that astronauts will be able to eat fresh, homegrown tomatoes.
Anyone who has been listening to the show for any
Header image: Mizuna lettuce growing aboard the International Space Station before being harvested and frozen for return to Earth. Image credit: NASA
Yesterday I read that Trump adviser Myron Ebell, a climate change denier, thinks that the green movement is the greatest threat to freedom.
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.
Fresh from wondering where my writing career is going, I thought it might be fun to revisit some of the places it has been. In 2007 I was just starting out as a freelance writer, having been made redundant from my job as a techie. I’d been blogging for several years, and was slowly getting published (and paid!) online and off.
Buying plants
Right now, 200 miles above your head, chilli peppers are growing on the International Space Station (ISS).
“Not only does Growing Vegetables is Fun! introduce children to a number of seeds and plants, but through containing a scrapbook and seed diary, also provides hours of educational fun!”
Good King Henry is a perennial herb in the family Chenopodiaceae – the same plant family as some familiar vegetables (including beetroot and chard), some familiar weeds (e.g. Fat Hen) and some other useful but more unusual plants – including quinoa and tree spinach.
Nasturtiums make a great addition to a kitchen garden, for several reasons. Firstly, they come in lots of hot, bright colours, and really cheer the place up when there’s a lot of green around. Secondly, they’re edible – you can add the leaves and flowers to salads (they have a peppery flavour, best used in moderation) and if you pickle the seeds you have a good substitute for capers. Thirdly, they act as sacrificial plants, drawing blackfly and other pests away from more valuable crops. And finally, they’re really easy to grow, to the point where after the first year they’re likely to grow themselves.
If you’ve just decided to grow your own vegetables to save money, then where do you start? A visit to the garden centre, or a quick flick through the seed catalogue, can be daunting – especially if you don’t have a lot of space for your vegetable patch. What’s going to give you the most bang for your buck?
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.
The international children’s charity World Vision are currently helping communities in the Bolivian Andes to grow vegetables against the odds – fresh food would otherwise be in short supply and children in these communities suffer from malnutrition.