How To Grow Chickpeas On The Moon

UK Gardeners Know The Feeling Of Battling Heavy Clay, Slugs, And A British Summer That Lasts About A Fortnight. But Spare A Thought For The Astronauts On NASA’s Artemis Mission. Because When They Get Back To The Moon, They’ll Be Trying To Grow Chickpeas In Lunar Dust.

Long-term lunar living comes with a whole list of headaches: building shelters, finding water, and crucial growing food. You can’t just haul a few bags of John Innes No. 3 on a rocket, or take an allotment. So they’ll have to use what’s already up there: lunar regolith ie moon dust. That’s the Moon’s surface layer of crushed rock and rubble. It isn’t going to be easy and I can’t advise them. I know my limits.

How Grow Chickpeas In The U.K. - Indoor sown Pea shoots sown in October, Grow chickpeas on the moon.

A study in Scientific Reports puts it plainly: “To return humans to the Moon and establish a lunar presence, we must maximise in situ resources.” In other words, use what’s lying about. The trouble is, lunar regolith on its own is terrible growing medium. It’s got toxic heavy metals, no organic matter, no soil life, poor structure, and to top it off, plenty of radiation.

But moon dust does contain some useful nutrients: phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and iron. Plus silicon and titanium, which can help strengthen plants and improve stress tolerance. The catch? Most of these nutrients are locked away in forms plants can’t easily get at. And nitrogen? Almost none. You’d have to add it.

And of course there are no “soil” fungi or bacteria … as far as we know!

“The research is about understanding the viability of growing crops on the Moon,” says co-author Sara Santos. “How do we transform this regolith into soil?”

So the team grew chickpeas. They mixed simulated Moon dirt (based on Apollo samples) with vermicompost – that’s worm compost from red wiggler earthworms, packed with nutrients and microbes. Proper good stuff. They also coated the chickpeas with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi – a clever fungus that hooks into plant roots, helps them grab nutrients, and reduces heavy metal uptake.

The result? Mixes with up to 75% Moon dirt actually produced harvestable chickpeas. Promising, yes. But before you get too excited, the plants showed clear signs of stress: yellowing leaves, stunted growth, smaller leaves, and not much branching.

The silver lining? Plants with the fungus survived longer than those without. And the fungus colonised the simulated regolith and hung on, so you’d probably only need to introduce it once.

Now, nobody’s actually tasted these chickpeas yet. Big questions remain: Do they taste of anything? Are they nutritious? Are they even safe?

“We want to understand their feasibility as a food source,” says lead author Jessica Atkin. “How healthy are they? Do they have the nutrients astronauts need? If they aren’t safe to eat, how many generations until they are?”

Improving the regolith, reducing plant stress, and understanding long-term soil-microbe-plant interactions on the moon is just the beginning. But it’s a start. And interestingly they are following the advice I always give about looking after soil health and soil microfauna.

So next time you’re moaning about your own garden’s problems? Be pleased that you’re not gardening on the Moon.