Gardeners of the Galaxy – Details, episodes & analysis

It’s Gardeners of the Galaxy’s fourth birthday! To celebrate this auspicious event, I looked up what would be a suitable fourth anniversary gift. Traditionally, there are two that fit that bill – fruit and flowers. So Ryan and I have baked a lemon cake with strawberry frosting and sugar flower decorations, and I have picked two fun stories from the astrobotany archives to share with you.

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Our Mission Specialist for this episode is the wonderful Borja Barbero Barcenilla, who is talking about what happens to plant telomeres in space. Borja and I had a brilliant chat about his breathtaking research, including an upcoming flight experiment, a special mutant Arabidopsis strain, and the sci-fi experience of putting your plants into a particle accelerator. And if you’ve ever wondered what plant a Spaniard would choose to take into space, well… you won’t want to miss it!

 

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In this teaser episodes, join Emma the Space Gardener for a trip into the astrobotany archives. In 2006, researchers published their work attempting to grow marigolds on simulated lunar regolith. But there's more to it than that....

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The last episode of 2022 is here, and it's a good one! Emma the Space Gardener has 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.

 

Support the show via Patreon and get early access to episodes, sneak peeks behind the scenes and exclusive bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/gardenersofthegalaxy.

In 2018, the German Space Agency launched a particularly ambitious project on a year-long space mission - a satellite equipped with two greenhouses designed to grow tiny tomatoes at gravity levels equivalent to those found on the Moon and Mars. But it was more than just an experiment to grow plants in space. In this episode, Emma the Gardener explores Eu:CROPIS, a project to develop a biological life-support system... for tomatoes.

In the latest episode, Emma the Space Gardener talks with two young scientists, Pia Bensch and Nils Wörz, from a team of students working on a space plant experiment. Glücksklee will spend a month on the ISS next year, exploring the relationship between a clover-like plant and its symbiotic bacteria. 

Support the show via Patreon and get early access to episodes, sneak peeks behind the scenes and exclusive bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/gardenersofthegalaxy.

With the launch of NASA's Artemis I mission to the Moon just days away, Emma the Space Gardener has put together a guide covering the highlights of the mission for space gardeners. Learn about the space biology experiments on their way to their Moon, the seeds stashed away in the Orion capsule, and more!

Support the show via Patreon and get early access to episodes, sneak peeks behind the scenes and exclusive bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/gardenersofthegalaxy 

The year is 2022, and all across the United Kingdom, something extraordinary is afoot. Ten awe-inspiring projects are coming together in a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of creativity, many of which involve space or plants! In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener is joined by Prof Fiona Burnett, the horticultural lead for Dandelion. Dandelion is an amazing Scotland-wide grow-your-own project this summer, bringing together art and music, harvest and cooking, and community spirit. Learn about the Cubes of Perpetual Light, the Unexpected Gardens springing up across Scotland, the Big Tattie Experiment and more!

 

Support the show via Patreon and get early access to episodes, sneak peeks behind the scenes and exclusive bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/gardenersofthegalaxy.

Gardeners of the Galaxy is celebrating its second birthday! So join Emma the Space Gardener as she chats with Dr Anna-Lisa Paul of the UF Space Plants Lab, one of the astrobotanists behind the recent groundbreaking experiments growing the first ever plants on real Moon soil. Anna-Lisa also talks about her wide-ranging experiences, from being an analog astronaut to flying with her plants on the vomit comet, and chooses a Fantasy Space Plant specially designed for growing off-world.

Support the show via Patreon and get early access to episodes, sneak peeks behind the scenes and exclusive bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/gardenersofthegalaxy 

In 2021, One Giant Leap Australia sent golden wattle seeds into space, as part of a nationwide STEM project to explore "What'll Happen to the Wattle??!". In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener talks to Jackie Carpenter about how the seeds got to space, and then back home again, and what's next for the space-flown wattle seeds.   Support the show via Patreon and get early access to episodes, sneak peeks behind the scenes and exclusive bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/gardenersofthegalaxy.