Garlic is usually planted in late autumn or early winter (although some cultivars can be planted in early spring). Grow garlic in a warm, sunny spot, in fertile, well-drained soil that doesn’t get too wet in winter. There’s also elephant garlic, which bears giant, mild-flavoured bulbs, which you can grow for a lighter garlic taste. If left to develop on the plants, you can harvest and plant the bulbils, but it may take 2-3 years to form a decent bulb. It is best to remove the scape as soon as it appears (use it in stir fries) so that the plant will divert its energies into producing a larger bulb. This straightens out as it matures, to carry a head of tiny clove-like bulbils. Hardneck types will often produce a curling flower stalk or ‘scape’. They are generally hardier than softneck types and can be grown throughout the UK. Hardneck garlic has fewer cloves per bulb – usually 10 or less. Softneck garlic is less tolerant of prolonged cold temperatures and is therefore best suited to growing in mild southern counties, though it can be grown elsewhere with protection in the winter. It has a white, papery skin, stores well and rarely produces a flower stalk. It produces the greatest number of cloves per bulb – up to 18. There are two types of garlic to grow: softneck garlic and hardneck garlic. The certified garlic bulbs are sold at garden centres or online. It’s an easy crop to grow – it’s sown from garlic cloves as opposed to seeds. Home-grown garlic takes up little space and requires hardly any effort to get a good crop. The first, Chang’e-5, will launch before the end of the year, aiming to collect a sample of lunar material and return it to Earth.Garlic needs a long growing season to do well, and autumn through to early winter is the perfect time to sow so that plants develop roots and shoots before the heavy frosts. On 14 January, the China National Space Administration announced plans for at least three further lunar missions. Its six-wheeled rover Yutu2 had woken up on 10 January, after a ‘nap’ scheduled to avoid overheating during the hottest period of the lunar day the rover and Chang’e-4 took pictures and videos of each other. The Chang’e-4 lander also sent panoramic images of the far side of the Moon on 11 January. The experiments also seek to verify previous studies done on the International Space Station that found that potato and thale-cress can grow normally in controlled ecosystems in lower gravity than on Earth, but not in gravity as low as on the Moon. “When we take the step towards long-term human habitation on the Moon or Mars, we will need greenhouse facilities to support us, and will need to live in something like a biosphere,” Anna-Lisa Paul, a horticultural scientist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, told Nature ahead of the launch. Xie says that the experiments will provide a basis for research into culturing plants on the Moon and could inspire the construction of future lunar bases for humans. “It will provide a basis for world scientists to study the biological growth and photosynthesis under the conditions of low gravity, wide temperature difference and long illumination of the moon,” says Xie Genxin, a space environment scientist at Chongqing University and the chief designer of the biological experiment payload on the Chang’e mission.Ĭhang’e-4 is also testing whether potato and thale-cress ( Arabidopsis) seeds sprout and photosynthesize in a sealed, climate-controlled environment in the low gravity on the lunar surface. The idea is for the plants to try and form a mini biosphere - an artificial, self-sustaining environment. On 3 January, it became first craft to make a soft landing on the far side of the Moon.Ī small, sealed container carrying the seeds also contained nutrients, air and water, as well as yeast and fruit-fly eggs. The pioneering experiment is one of several being carried out by Chang’e-4, a mission that is quickly racking up lunar firsts. The lander sent back images of a cotton seed sprouting in a mini-biosphere experiment, a feat announced on 15 January. China’s Chang’e-4 mission has become the first ever to grow plants on the Moon.
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