GreenHab Officer: Scott Dorrington
Environmental control: heater on automatic, door opened for 15 minutes at midday
Average temperatures:
08:43: 74.5 F, 18%
13:13: 102.2 F, 11% door open
13:30: 84.9 F, 11% door closed
14:17: 101.1 F, 12%
15:07: 105.4 F, 12%
16:00: 103.3 F, 20%
17:09: 89.1 F, 24%
17:46: 77.0 F, 27%
Hours of supplemental light: 4 hours overnight
Daily water usage for crops: 6 gallons
Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: 0 gallons
Water in Blue Tank (200 gallon capacity): 118 gallons
Time(s) of watering for crops: 8:43 mist, 13:13 water + mist, 15:07 water, 16:00 mist, 17:45 a bit of water from vegetable cooking
Changes to crops:
Narrative:
Today was another sunny day, although temperatures were manageable. I checked in with the plants before my morning EVA to give them a mist. After returning around 1pm, I returned to give the plants their first watering of the day, and also to release another spider captured in the hab. I gave special care to the newly planted carrots, making sure to keep the soil nice and moist. I left the door open for around 15 minutes while watering, which brought the temperatures down from 102 F to 85 F. This was a strategic cooling to avoid high temperatures later in the day. It worked – temperatures rose again to around 100 and remained there for the rest of the day. At 3pm, I returned for the second watering of the day, and some shuffling of the plants to keep them out direct sunlight in the afternoon. On my way back from the GreenHab, I stopped in to the Observatory to get a closer look at the sun that has been keeping our plants alive (managed to see a prominence and a few sun spots). In the afternoon, I noticed the two red tomatoes on tomato #9 were looking very ripe. Today was harvest day. We brought them back to the hab and divided them up – 1/3 of a tomato each. Steve also ran them through his spectrifier before consumption, so we got to see some nice tomato spectral curves. The crew relished the fruits of our labour – we all commented on the very tomato-y flavour – much better than store bought. Certified fresh!
Harvest: Tomatoes x2 (21 g)
Support/supplies needed: None