Why there’ll be no blight on Mars

It’s almost impossible – and perhaps undesirable – to avoid all impulse purchases. But it’s wise to limit it to the occasional sweet from the bakery or clothing item from a store that accepts returns. When it comes to buying plants, impulse buying is almost always a mistake. Read on for more information about sustainable shopping for plants for the home and garden.

7 Reasons Why Garlic Leaves Fall Over

The answer to Why My Succulent Leaves Turning Yellow is simple. Yellow leaves on succulent plants can be a sign of several problems, from overwatering to lack of sunlight and pest infestation. In this article, we will explore the reasons why succulent leaves turn yellow and provide practical solutions to help your plants thrive.

Join us for an exclusive conversation with presenter, broadcaster and author Alan Titchmarsh. Recorded at BBC Gardeners’ World Live, and Hosted by presenter and broadcaster, Nicki Chapman, the audience listened in as Alan discussed what it means to be a good gardener… You can buy tickets for the next live show, BBC Gardeners’ World Autumn Fair here.

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for some statistics about the average UK garden size, and I found some interesting ones. According to the 2015 media pack for the RHS The Garden magazine, a document that is aimed at attracting advertisers to the publication, the 380,000 RHS members the magazine is sent to have gardens that are 10 times larger than the UK average, covering over half an acre.

The idea that we should be gardening without using peat is not a new one, at least here in the UK. I have a copy of ‘Gardening Without Peat’, published by Friends of the Earth in 1991. It explains that our exploitation of peat bogs is using up peat faster than it is being formed – we should consider it a non-renewable resource. The destruction of the peat bogs is causing a decline in biodiversity and allowing carbon dioxide to escape into the atmosphere to add to our climate woes.

Last week, Thales UK and Thales Alenia Space announced their MARSBalloon 2021 project. They plan to launch more than 150 experiment capsules on high altitude balloons 30km up into the Earth’s atmosphere in June 2021. At those altitudes, the gas pressure, temperature and radiation are very similar to those on the surface of Mars. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this project is that UK students will fill those experiment capsules. School students and science clubs can carry out Mars-analogue science experiments, with no costs beyond materials and postage. The only catch? It has to fit into a plastic Kinder Egg™ capsule.

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.

Christopher Gaffney, Lancaster University and Bethan Phillips, University of Nottingham

Header image: George Frey/EPA

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

Hello and welcome to Meals on Mars, your weekly imaginarium devoted to the future of food on Earth and beyond!