On Monday, 20 Beijingers visited a special base in the capital's Shunyi District where vegetable seeds that were sent into space in 2003 on the manned spacecraft Shenzhou V have been cultivated.

Visitors asked staff workers questions and took photos of the 1.4 meter-long bottle gourds, basketball-sized eggplants and 300-bud chrysanthemums in the gardens.

They also enjoyed dishes cooked with the vegetables grown there, saying the cucumbers tasted sweeter and chilies hotter than ordinary ones, and some even took doggy bags home.

Experts at the base said vegetables cultivated there are more nutritious, with the cucumbers containing 44 percent more vitamin C than regular ones.

So far about 30 kinds of vegetables and flowers have been cultivated in the base from seeds that have been in space.

(China.org.cn by Li Shen, November 3, 2005)