martinzoo

We planted 78 little plants today….. whew!

Yesterday we got the seeds for our Tomatosphere project in the mail. So today we planted the seeds and printed out our data recording sheet. GB is very excited to be doing something for the Space Program. Essentially we are experimenting with tomato seeds that have been exposed to similar conditions that Astronauts will be exposed to when they set up a Space Station on Mars. Since it will be a 2-3 year mission, they are hoping to be able to grow vegetables while there. But you don’t want to find out once you get there, that your seeds won’t grow because of the Mars atmosphere. We also have a control group of seeds that have only been exposed to Earth’s atmosphere.

So today we planted 30 tomato seeds that have been exposed in space, and 30 seeds that are normal. We don’t know which is which until we report our findings. You can learn about the Tomatosphere project here. Theresa, over at Lapaz Farm Home Learning, is doing this project also. And I can’t wait to see what cool things she and Superboy will do. If you are interested in this project, there is still time to sign up. I’d love to see everybody’s posted pictures.
We had 10 peat pots left, so we decided to plant some sunflower seeds that we had hanging around, either for the birds or the hamster. We also planted one rose bush, two pots of pansies, and two pots of vinca into some container gardens on my deck. And we repotted three apple tree seedlings that GB insisted we plant from his apple a few weeks ago. When we were done my deck looked so pretty and peaceful that we decided to hang for a while and appreciate our hard work.