Hellboy the Space Chile

Collaborative post

Decorating for fall can go far beyond pumpkins and plaid. It's the season of rich textures, warm colors, and nubby knits. It's when you can layer enthusiastically, embracing your inner cottage dweller while happily sipping on your pumpkin spice latte.

Word by Matt de Neef, The Conversation

Climb the cast-iron steps to the roof garden at the Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC) and you can almost forget that you’re in the heart of the city. Just 30 by 6 metres, the garden manages to fill every vista and the breeze through the trees drowns out all but the loudest city noises.

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.

Header image: Nematodes play an important role in all biological systems. Shutterstock

Over our heads, on the International Space Station, chilli peppers are blooming and being hand-pollinated by astronauts.

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.

Myrtle (Myrtus communis) is a plant that has been on my ‘to grow’ list for years now, although it has yet to make an appearance in the garden. In the UK it is often grown as an ornamental plant, an evergreen shrub up to 3m in height and width. Given a spot in full sun and well-drained soil, it produces pink buds that open into white flowers with multiple gold-tipped stamens, followed by blue-black berries. It is hardy down to -10°C, and in mild areas can be grown as a hedge as it tolerates regular clipping. The species has the most frost tolerance; some of the named varieties are less hardy, but there are also smaller varieties that will tolerate being in a container long term, and so can be moved into more sheltered accommodations for the winter.

I found some time (and a blackbird-free window!) to spend in the garden yesterday afternoon. After pottering around looking after my seedlings, and repotting my salmonberry, I had to do some watering. April has been uncharacteristically dry, I don’t think we’ve had any rain to speak of this month. Everything in a raised bed is doing OK, but things in containers were starting to wilt.

Just over 3 weeks ago, I started the AeroGarden on its latest mission – rooting herb cuttings. Unsurprisingly, the mint was the first plant to take root, which it did in under a week.

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.