About
Atomic Gardening is devoted to preserving the history, memory, and learnings of the midcentury atomic gardens.
I’m Paige Johnson, a nanoscientist (www.ten-ninetech.com) who also happens to have a master’s degree in the history of gardens. I got interested in things atomic when I was asked to speak at a conference about the Festival of Britain, held in London on the South Bank of the Thames in 1951. Its contemporary ‘atomic’ style of art and architecture was widely influential in Great Britain, and I was searching out equivalently atomic design motifs in the landscape.
But I soon came across a much more literal application of the atomic in the garden: midcentury experiments in botanical irradiation that had leapt out of the laboratory and into the lives of ordinary consumers and gardeners.
The progeny of their work is still with us today, largely unexamined. So as time permits I’m constantly sourcing new information and will be updating this site accordingly. If you’d like to help, please contact me!
You can see more of my writing about the history of landscapes at gardenhistorygirl.com. I am also the founder of the world’s most widely viewed site for playground design: play-scapes.com.
For other articles about my atomic garden research, see:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/atomic-veggies-the-other-kind-of-gmo
http://pruned.blogspot.com/2011/04/atomic-gardens.html
http://www.ediblegeography.com/strange-and-beautiful-seeds-from-the-atom/
https://www.good.is/articles/how-radiation-is-changing-the-foods-that-you-eat