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 - 12:01 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
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.
Nasturtiums are hardy annuals, meaning that they’re not afraid of the cold and they complete their whole lifecycle (from seed, to plant, to flower, to seed) in one season. They come in a range of colours, and in several forms – trailing, climbing, and dwarf. If you choose the right sort they can fit in most gardens, scrambling up screens, tumbling down from hanging baskets or ranging underneath taller plants.
Nasturtiums have big seeds and grow quickly, which makes them ideal for children to try sowing. They can be sown outdoors (where you want them to flower) from early spring to around midsummer, and if you want them earlier you can start them indoors from late winter and transplant them outside in spring (they will need hardening off).
Nasturtiums aren’t fussy about soil, and don’t need to be fed – giving them fertilizer encourages more green growth than flowers. They do need to be watered in dry weather, but are pretty tolerant and self-reliant.
If you don’t eat all the flowers then seeds will start to form from summer onwards. If you want to pickle them you need to harvest the seeds when they’re fresh and green. If you
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.
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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).
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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.