Category: Greenhab Report

Crew 305 GreenHab Report 20Dec2024

GreenHab Officer: Hunter Vannier

Environmental control (fan & heater): Heater and fan on automatically.

Average temperatures (last 24h): 87 F

Maximum temperature (last 24h): 95 F

Minimum temperature (last 24h): 80.1 F

Hours of supplemental light: 1700 – 2200

Daily water usage for crops: 10 gallons

Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: none

Water in Blue Tank (200-gallon capacity): 109.75 gallons

Time(s) of watering for crops: 9:15 am, 4:16 pm

Changes to crops: none

Narrative: It is my final day in the GreenHab and everything is looking healthy. There are a lot of cucumbers growing and even the first cherry tomatoes appeared! I hope the following crews appreciate them. I thoroughly watered all of the plants which is why the consumption is higher today, and I disassembled my experiment.

Harvest: none

Support/supplies needed: none

Crew 305 GreenHab Report 12Dec2024

GreenHab Officer: Hunter Vannier

Environmental control (fan & heater): Heater and fan on automatically.

NOTE: No environmental data available from 1800 (12-11-24) to 1200 (12-12-24), so following numbers from 1200-1600 (12-12-24) unless otherwise specified

Average temperatures (last 24h): 85 F

Maximum temperature (last 24h): 90.3 F

Minimum temperature (last 24h): 78.6 F (45.0 F observed last night (12-11-24) in GreenHab at ~2200)

Hours of supplemental light: 1700 – 2200

Daily water usage for crops: 3.5 gallons

Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: None

Water in Blue Tank (200-gallon capacity): 156 gallons

Time(s) of watering for crops: 11:39 AM

Changes to crops: Pulled remaining raised bed and seeded soaked pea and sunflower microgreens.

Narrative: Cucumbers were wilted in the morning but are doing fine and the plants survived the night entirely unscathed. Today, one raised bed of old microgreens was pulled, ~1 gallon of soil added, and seeded with pea and sunflower microgreens. Then the bed was covered with a synthetic burlap bag to start the blackout period (3-5 days). At 8:00 PM tonight I observed no wilting. I ran into some troubles with wiring my experiment to monitor soil moisture content, so I am seeking help from crew members with engineering experience and will attempt to get it working tomorrow. Tomorrow I plan to transplant some tomatoes and sunflowers.

Harvest: 6 g cilantro

Support/supplies needed: none

Crew 305 GreenHab Report 13Dec2024

GreenHab Officer: Hunter Vannier

Environmental control (fan & heater): Heater and fan on automatically.

Average temperatures (last 24h): 88.0 F

Maximum temperature (last 24h): 94.5 F

Minimum temperature (last 24h): 78.1 F

Hours of supplemental light: 1700 – 2200

Daily water usage for crops: 9 gallons

Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: None

Water in Blue Tank (200-gallon capacity): 147 gallons

Time(s) of watering for crops: 9:10 AM, 4:00 PM

Changes to crops: Harvested arugula, thyme, thinned basil, transplanted sunflowers

Narrative: Today the cucumbers were very wilted by the afternoon watering; I’m not sure why some days are better than others for this. The higher water consumption today has to do with the sunflower transplant. There was a pot with 3 sunflowers in it, and I transplanted each into its own pot. A couple look like they’re ready to flower, so I hope the stress of the transplant doesn’t slow that down too much. A tip for using the potting soil in the GreenHab: because of the climate here, the bag of potting soil is very dry. If you put it directly from bag to pot, the soil retains essentially no water, and it drains out the bottom of the pot. I have found by priming the soil, this no longer happens. I dump soil into the wheelbarrow and then pour water on top of it, then stir it with a trowel kind of like making dough. When the soil starts to clump and the water no longer separates from the soil in the wheelbarrow, it is ready to be used for potting. Spruha assisted in the following harvest: ¾ box of arugula to be sauteed as a side for dinner tonight, thyme and parsley for the tomato sauce, and basil to top the spaghetti. The basil is young, but it needed to be thinned for future healthy growth. I also noticed a lot of small flies in the GreenHab hanging out in the raised bed and observed a couple of red mites in the carrots.

Harvest: 156 g arugula, 5 g parsley, 1 g thyme, 2 g basil

Support/supplies needed: none

GreenHab Officer: Hunter Vannier

Environmental control (fan & heater): Heater and fan on automatically.

Average temperatures (last 24h): 78

Maximum temperature (last 24h): 93.4 F

Minimum temperature (last 24h): 63.0 F

Hours of supplemental light: 1700 – 2200

Daily water usage for crops: 3.5 gallons

Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: None

Water in Blue Tank (200-gallon capacity): 159.5 gallons

Time(s) of watering for crops: 745, 1615

Changes to crops: Thinned/pruned cucumbers and tomatoes

Narrative: Everything is looking less wilted this morning and it is 83 F which the plants seem happiest at. By 4:15 the cucumbers and half arugula were wilted. Today I pruned and thinned the tomatoes, and pruned dead leaves from the cucumbers. I observed some stunted cucumbers (1 cm) but they were withered. I removed flowers on some lower stems to encourage stronger fruiting. I prepped pots with soil to begin my experiments. Around 5:00 PM we lost power and exited the sim. We attempted to find solutions to plug the GreenHab heater into the portable generator, but could not. By ~9:00 PM the temperature in the GreenHab was ~45 F, but this was with no less than 10 times entries and exits from the GreenHab which undoubtedly caused loss in heat. The space heater from the RAM was set up in the GreenHab and the plants survived the night well. More details to come in the next report.

Harvest: 5 g cilantro, 160 g carrot greens, 20 g radish greens

Support/supplies needed: none

Crew 305 GreenHab Report 14Dec2024

GreenHab Officer: Hunter Vannier

Environmental control (fan & heater): Heater and fan on automatically.

Average temperatures (last 24h): 88 F

Maximum temperature (last 24h): 91.8 F

Minimum temperature (last 24h): 73.6 F

Hours of supplemental light: 1700 – 2200

Daily water usage for crops: 5 gallons

Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: None

Water in Blue Tank (200-gallon capacity): 142 gallons

Time(s) of watering for crops: 8:55 am, 2:30 pm

Changes to crops: Transplanted and thinned tomatoes; only one tomato per pot now. Thinned scallions.

Narrative: Today there was no wilting in the cucumbers. When the high temp in the GreenHab is lower than 95 and it’s overcast, it seems that the cucumbers are much less stressed. I added another string that hangs from the bar on the ceiling so ambitious cucumbers grow up rather than into the tomatoes. Since their transplant yesterday, the sunflowers are doing great and show no signs of stress. The broccoli microgreens began to sprout today, the second of the crops during Crew 305’s stay. Today I spent an hour thinning, transplanting, and adding cages to the tomatoes. All of the tomatoes in there are rainbow cherry varieties, so I thinned them to one per pot, transplanting the more mature plants. Though it pained me to uproot some of the tomatoes, they were crowded, and it would not have been sustainable water-wise to have that many tomato plants. Given the volume of the pots, they need to be one per pot in order to bear any fruit down the line. Scallions were thinned and used for dinner tonight, SPAM fried rice.

Harvest: 4 g scallions

Support/supplies needed: none

Crew 305 GreenHab Report 09Dec2024

GreenHab Officer: Hunter Vannier

Environmental control (fan & heater): Heater and fan on automatically.

Average temperatures (last 24h): 80 F

Maximum temperature (last 24h): 93.0 F

Minimum temperature (last 24h): 70.9 F

Hours of supplemental light: 1700 – hours

Daily water usage for crops: 2 gallons

Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: None

Water in Blue Tank (200-gallon capacity): 168 gallons

Time(s) of watering for crops: 900, 1815

Changes to crops: None

Narrative: All cucumbers were very dehydrated so 1 gallon of water was distributed across the plants to thoroughly saturate the soil. The cilantro we picked was fresh and delicious, adding some color to dinner. Many of the herbs, radishes, and carrot seedlings are quite crowded, so I intend to thin them to ensure they have enough room/nutrition to grow. Next to the tomatoes, there are a lot of trays labeled microgreens which have turned into macrogreens and are likely no longer useable for food/salad (i.e. small sunflower plants). I intend to pull and discard half of them and seed new microgreens. These, along with the arugula, were quite dehydrated when I checked at 1815.

Harvest: 5 g cilantro

Support/supplies needed: none

Crew 305 GreenHab Report 10Dec2024

GreenHab Officer: Hunter Vannier

Environmental control (fan & heater): Heater and fan on automatically. I opened the door for 15 minutes to cool off the GreenHab; a lot of plants were wilting.

Average temperatures (last 24h): 82 F

Maximum temperature (last 24h): 94.6 F

Minimum temperature (last 24h): 68.2 F

Hours of supplemental light: 1700 – 2200

Daily water usage for crops: 5 gallons

Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: None

Water in Blue Tank (200-gallon capacity): 163 gallons

Time(s) of watering for crops: 925, 1730

Changes to crops: significantly thinned carrots in back corner, thinned fennel, thinned radish, pulled whole bed of overgrown microgreens and replanted with China rose radish sprouts (4 g), broccoli seeds (2 g), red cabbage (2 g), radish (2 g).

Narrative: The cucumbers were fairly dehydrated again this morning, but seemed to bounce back better today. Three cucumbers per pot is quite crowded and they are competing too much for water, so I may try to transplant a few to larger pots to see how they react. Some tomatoes are also overcrowded. I did major thinning of the carrots in the back corner, which yielded a lot of carrot greens. They were too crowded to actually grow the carrot root, so hopefully they respond well. It seems a lot of seeds were planted but were not thinned early on, which is recommended for healthy growth. The radishes were much less crowded, but some thinning was still needed. However, the carrot greens and radish greens were made into a fresh salad and not thrown out. The cilantro, dill, and parsley are doing great despite also being fairly tightly grouped, so they respond much better when crowded. We added cilantro to a lentil dish for lunch which again was delicious. One raised bed of old microgreens was pulled, ~1 gallon of soil added, and replanted with the following microgreens: China rose radish, broccoli, red cabbage, and radish. I began soaking sunflower (3 g) and pea (3 g) seeds to be planted in the next 2 days in the other raised bed, which I will also pull. In the next two days, I plan on pruning the tomatoes and cucumber, harvesting arugula (which is also overcrowded), and transplanting sunflowers, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

Harvest: 5 g cilantro, 160 g carrot greens, 20 g radish greens

Support/supplies needed: none

Crew 297 GreenHab Report 24-04-2024

GreenHab Officer: Sean Marquez

Environmental control:

Heater on (set to 55F)
Fan on (set to turn on at 94F; turn off at 82F)
Average temperatures: 84F

Hours of supplemental light: N/A

Daily water usage for crops: 5 gal

Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: 0 gal

Water in Blue Tank: 165 gal

Time(s) of watering for crops: 13:20

Changes to crops: N/A

Narrative: Fan system was on full power, which for the most part managed to keep the GreenHab atmospheric temperatures below 100F. Regardless, opened the door to the tunnel system around 14:00 to allow for supplemental airflow.

Harvest:

10g of cherry tomatoes
Support/supplies needed: N/A

Crew 297 GreenHab Report 25-04-2024

GreenHab Officer: Sean Marquez

Environmental control:
– Heater on (set to 55F)
– Fan on (set to turn on at 94F; turn off at 82F)

Average temperatures: 83F

Hours of supplemental light: N/A

Daily water usage for crops: 4 gal

Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: 0 gal

Water in Blue Tank: 161 gal

Time(s) of watering for crops: 14:20

Changes to crops: N/A

Narrative: The GreenHab atmospheric temperatures managed to stay below 100F completely on the automated fan system without the need for supplemental airflow from the tunnel system today, likely due to the cooler outdoor temperatures due to overcast. Today’s harvest was a record for Crew 297! And it provided an excellent basis for both lunch and dinner.

Harvest:
– 208g of cherry tomatoes
– 243g of red cabbage
– 43g of kale
– 6g of lettuce
– 45g of carrots
– 183g of cucumber
– 30g of green onion
– 11g of radish

Support/supplies needed: N/A

Crew 297 GreenHab Report 26-04-2024

GreenHab Officer: Sean Marquez

Environmental control:

Heater on (set to 55F)
Fan on (set to turn on at 94F; turn off at 82F)
Average temperatures: 72F

Hours of supplemental light: N/A

Daily water usage for crops: 0 gal

Daily water usage for research and/or other purposes: 0 gal

Water in Blue Tank: 161 gal

Time(s) of watering for crops: N/A

Changes to crops: N/A

Narrative: Today was another record harvest for Crew 297 (which provided an excellent basis for ingredients for the pot pie)! Temperatures were nominal. No watering was done as it was also the last day and were scheduled to teardown the GreenHab. It’s been an honor and privilege serving on this rotation. GreenHab Officer signing out.

Harvest:

126g of cherry tomatoes
2g of rosemary
7g of parsley
5g of thyme
12g of sage
670g of radish
Support/supplies needed: N/A