When NASA is selecting crops to grow in space, it looks for varieties that can produce a lot of food in a small space, on compact plants that are healthy and easy-to-grow. It turns out that they suitable tomato plants already exist on Earth, as there are plenty of windowsill and small-space gardeners who love tiny tomatoes!
Scientists at Cold Spring Harbour University used gene editing to develop a new variety of tomato that’s extremely compact, early yielding and suitable for urban agriculture and space missions. It produces a ‘bouquet’ of cherry tomatoes in around 5 weeks. It’s not available to the general public yet, but the researchers say that NASA has expressed interest.
Real Seeds’ new House tomato is an amazing heirloom variety that started life in Russia. It’s a dwarf tomato bed for growing in pots on the windowsill, so it makes short and sturdy plants around 30cm tall. Despite their short stature, they’re laden with round, red cherry tomatoes.
Victoriana Nursery Gardens sells Tiny Tim, an heirloom bush tomato that can be grown indoors or outside. It grows to 30cm, producing masses of sweet and juicy cherry tomatoes with a good flavour.
Burpees Europe sells Veranda Red, which I grew in my AeroGarden earlier this year. It grows a bit taller, to 50cm, and produces lovely sweet tomatoes.
NASA has been experimenting with Red Robin dwarf tomato plants. In this image we see plant scientist Lashelle Spencer, in the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. The project was designed to confirm that nutritious, high-quality produce can be reliably grown in deep space.
In episode 10 of Gardeners of the Galaxy, NASA’s Gioia Massa confirmed that tomatoes are headed to the International Space Station – most likely
Read more on theunconventionalgardener.com