GreenHab Officer: Scott Dorrington
Environmental control: heater off (space heater on overnight), fan on in afternoon, door closed
Average temperatures:
08:52: 57.6 F, 59%
14:16: 127.6 F, 13%
14:39: 100.9 F, 10%
17:21: 57.6 F, 27%
17:47: 55.2 F, 47%
18:29: 51.1 F, 62%
Hours of supplemental light: 21 hrs (lights on most of day, turned off 3 hrs in afternoon)
Daily water usage for crops: 6.5 gallons
Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: 0 gallons
Water in Blue Tank (200 gallon capacity): 147.5 gallons
Time(s) of watering for crops: 08:52 mist, 14:16 water + mist, 17:30 mist
Changes to crops: None
Narrative:
The greenhab was buzzing with activity this morning with visits from Rob, Clare, Alex and myself. We woke the plants with a nice misting and some tunes from Kylie Minogue. Together, we inspected the plants and did some pruning of the tomato plants, pinching off some small branches and leaves in hopes of promoting more nutrients to the fruits. We also performed a rotation of the tomatoes. Following advice from crew 290, I have commenced a rotation regiment of the tomato plants, with rows of tomatoes being moved inwards. The inner row of tomatoes are moved to the floor, and the others moved inward. I find this gives more room for watering, before moving the floor tomatoes to the outer wall of the greenhab. Following the morning EVA, I returned to the greenhab at 2pm accompanied by Clare again. The sun had finally come out during our EVA, and we returned to find it quite toasty in the greenhab at 126 F. This seemed like a very large number. Not being native users of Fahrenheit, we made a note to look up during comms window what this translated to in Celsius (53 C!!!!). We immediately turned the fan on and disconnected the lights. This brought the temperatures down to a more reasonable 100 F within a few minutes. The fans were left on, continuing to cool the greenhab. We commenced the daily watering of the plants, along with another rotation of the tomatoes. This was accompanied by some more chill Aussie tunes from Busby Marou. We noticed a spider in the greenhab – possibly one of those that were released over the last two sols. A further inspection of the herbs revealed some surprise peas!!! We counted at least three peas. The crew was very excited about this discovery. We noticed another pea vine crawling along the soil, which we gently coaxed back up around a stake. Clare and I returned to the greenhab in the evening to turn on the heater and harvest some of the herbs for tonight’s dinner. The red cabbage and kale plants were looking nice and thick – we got a good harvest from them of 57g and 38g. We added some basil and dill to balance out the salad. Lots of fresh greens to balance out tonight’s dinner of spam and cheese pizza! The salad was received from the crew with great relish. Certified fresh!
Harvest: 14g basil, 21g dill, 38g kale, 57g red cabbage,
Support/supplies needed: None