Emma the Space Gardener 🌿🚀

Don Pettit has shared some photos of his latest (2025) unorthodox space plant experiment - Spudnik-1! It has provoked some unhinged reactions from people who don't know what a sprouting potato looks like!!!

Image credits: Don Pettit/NASA. More details on the blog: https://spacebotany.uk/blog/spudnik-1-don-pettit-reveals-his-iss-potato-experiment/

#astrobotany #SpacePlants

Mar 26 at 7:28amWeb
Show threadEmma the Space Gardener 🌿🚀6h ago
My Spudnik-1 blog post is now the second link if you search Google for “Don Pettit potato”, and the surge in traffic used up all my bandwidth 🤣
Show threadCharnock5h ago
@OrbitalGardens Tayto would have paid good money for that.
Show threadalvin 👍 🥉3d ago
@OrbitalGardens unginged! 🥰
Show threadEmma the Space Gardener 🌿🚀3d ago
@alvin In my defence, it was very early 🤣
Show threadMark Eichin3d ago
@OrbitalGardens heh, *everything* in space has velcro on it
Show threadEmma the Space Gardener 🌿🚀3d ago
@eichin 'Tis true
Show threadEmma the Space Gardener 🌿🚀3d ago
@eichin Except perhaps the space tomato Frank Rubio lost: https://spacebotany.uk/blog/frank-rubios-space-tomatoes-and-trees/
Frank Rubio’s Space Tomatoes and Trees - Space Botany

Header image: Frank Rubio working with tomatoes growing in XROOTS on 11 October 2023. Image credit: NASA/Kjell Lindgren. When Frank Rubio blasted off in a...

Space Botany
Show threadMark Eichin1d ago
@OrbitalGardens ah, see, if the tomato had had velcro on it, they wouldn't have lost it! ("Every checklist is written in... ketchup?" :-)
Show threadOverclocked Andy3d ago
@OrbitalGardens sprouting potatoes are eldritch beasties.
I don’t know of many other plants so eager to get going, or so bloody persistent.
They are the horticultural equivalent of glitter, once you’ve planted potatoes you always have potatoes.
Show threadEmma the Space Gardener 🌿🚀3d ago
@OverclockedAndy Yeah - I grassed over my veg beds, and they still come up through the turf.
Show threadOverclocked Andy3d ago
@OrbitalGardens we once had a volunteer I couldn’t find. I dug 2 feet down & nothing but every year there was a sprouting in the same place.
However I really like eating potatoes in all formats so I tolerate them.