Lost in space: Why growing tomatoes in zero gravity is no easy feat

It looks as though spring might be on its way in the northern hemisphere, and gardeners’ thoughts are turning towards tomatoes and potatoes. You may have already sown your first tomato seeds; your seed potatoes may be chitting on the windowsill. But what if you could get both potatoes and tomatoes from the same plant – a TomTato?

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.

I love growing unusual edible plants – not only are they potentially useful and easy to grow (because the pests and diseases they suffer from are not widespread), but they can be beautiful too.

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.

I’m hoping to go and see The Martian soon, one of the few films to feature a botanist as the hero. Astronaut Mark Watney is one of the first humans to set foot on Mars, but accidentally gets left behind and has to survive on his own – and to do so he grows potatoes. He wouldn’t be the first person (or even population) to rely on potatoes for survival, but here on Earth there’s a slight snag. The potato (Solanum tuberosum) has an arch nemesis – late blight, caused by an organism called Phytophthora infestans. It cuts down both potatoes and tomatoes, and was the biological cause of the Irish Potato Famine in the 19th century.