Gardening in Antarctica

Yes believe it or not, we have a little garden at Davis Station!!

 

Not exactly your standard garden, but inside the white building Davis Station has a pretty good hydraponics setup and grows produce all year round.  Mainly established for the Wintering crew, this will supply them fresh produce such as lettuce, bok choy, tomotoes, cucumbers and herbs.

This month has been warm enough to leave the door ajar 24 hours a day to regulate the temperature back down to about 25.  It has been as high as 32!

 

One of the warmest building at Davis Station and definitely the one with the highest humidity level. 

Walking into the building the first thing that you notice is the overwhelming earthy smell, particularly the tomato plants.  Aside from Hydraponics setups, there is no plant life to be found on Antarctica. Apart from the beach smells, the Elephant seals, Adelie colonies etc. the place is virtually void of any normal smells found in Australia.

We have two rooms, with 5 different systems.  Each system has its own water tank and a pump which pumps water and nutrients to the plants.  These are our herbs.

 

This is my gardening buddy, Melanie Ho filling one of the tanks for the cucumbers.  Mel and I are one of 3 teams that cycle weekly and help look after the hydraponics setup.  Mel is a Marine Biologist and down here researching for her PHD.  Mel helps run the Aquarium, where all the marine specimens are kept, that the divers collect......more on this next time!!!

 

Each morning we fill most of the tanks.  The tomato tank uses by far the most water.  We put about 10 litres of water every morning into the tomato tank.  Other duties include checking for blockages or leaks through the system, sweeping the floor (dropped perculite and leaves etc.), recording ambient and tank water temperatures and whether we filled the tanks with water or not.  The lights we use are a high pressure sodium light.  These last about a year before being replaced.

 

We also monitor pH and EC levels.  These are the levels for our lettuce seedlings.

pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of soil or a solution. A basic, neutral solution is numerically equal to 7. The solution gets more acidic as the numbers decrease and more alkaline as the numbers increase. The ph scale ranges from 0 pH (very acidic) to 14 pH (highly alkaline). Pure water has a pH of 7, indicating that it is neither alkaline nor acidic, but neutral. Different nutrients may be absorbed at different pH levels. 

EC stands for Electrical Conductivity.  Low conductivitiy means low nutrient concentration, often resulting in nutritional deficiencies and slow plant growth. High conductivity means more food for your plants, but can also burn or kill them.  Depending on the plant or if the plant is bearing fruit or in flower, these levels can vary.

These are our Bok Choy seedlings. 
 
We treat the hydraponics setup as a quarantine area.  All Hydraponics waste is burnt in our Warren, which is a high temperature incinerator.  We also have to wash our hands everytime we enter the containers and before we touch the plants so there is no chance of introducing any diseases to the plants.

Our capsicum plants.

All of our produce is welcomed by the kitchen and does not last long with 80 or so expeditioners.  As most of our food stored frozen or canned, it is nice to have fresh produce.  During the winter, it goes a little further with only 20 or so mouths to feed.

Field Travel Training Part 2

Day 2 of our trip we headed from Trajer Ridge Melon around to Watts Hutt via Crooked Lake Apple.  This gave the 3 "trainees" more time in learning how to navigate.
This map shows from about 2km south west of Trajer Ridge the route we took to Watts Hut.

As you head west from Trajer Ridge, there is very little ice and snow to see.  There are a few frozen lakes along the way, but the landscape starts looking like the moon.

It is a geologist haven around the vestfolds.  There is a huge variety of rocks.  Here is one of the more interesting ones to be seen.

This is perhaps the only suspension bridge in Antarctica.  By mid January, under this bridge will be a creek flowing out from Watts Lake into the Ellis Fjord, just north of Watts Hut.

 

No running water yet, just a heap of snow built up underneath.

.

Watts Hut was to be our overnight stay. Very comfortable and nicely laid out, there are four beds, a dining table and a kitchen.

Relaxing after a long hike.  Our dinner consisted of "Dehydes" (just add water), actually rather tasty. There are a good variety of meals such as Beef and Green Bean, Spaghetti Bolognaise, Tuna Mornay and everyone's favourite, Lamb Casserole. Nichol also managed to make a Cheese Cake.  Not the type you are pobably thinking, but very edible when there is not much else to chose from.  Once again, Mike and Dave opted to Bivvy outside, while the 3 trainees slept in the comfort of the hut.

The next day, we had the trek back to Davis via Marine Plains Apple.

 

Inside Marine Plains Apple where we stopped for lunch and I managed to have a small power nap.

 

Crossing Ellis Fjord from Marine Plains Apple. 

This was to be one of the last crossings on sea ice before all sea ice travel was closed.  Without being able to cross here, means the long way around back to Watts Hut and crossing at the Ellis rapids.

All up over the 2 and half days by GPS we had walked just over 50kms.  Walking back into the station, the only thought I had was planning our next trip. 

Field Travel Training Part 1

For those people that are Survival Trained, the next step is Field Travel Training.  It's mandatory for Winter Personnel, but can also be done by Summer Personnel who are keen like me, to get away from the Station and enjoy some time hiking in the Vestfold Hills.

Our trip started on the 22nd of December and we caught a red and white to Trajer Ridge Melon.

Trajer Ridge from the air.

Trajer Ridge Melon

Looking inside the Melon

Mike inside the Melon with all the luxuries you need.  The wine bottles were empty and only used for holding candles.  We stayed the night here after walking around the ridge and up near the plateau most of the afternoon.  Dinner was too good for hiking, we had steak and veges, cooked by Mike our Field Training Officer.  His rewared and our other Field Training Officer Dave was to bivvy outside the melon for the night, while we enjoyed the cosiness of the melon.

Learning to traverse ice slopes.

Nichol talking to his girlfriend on his satphone.  In the background you can make out the plateau.

My camping buddies for this trip

Standing in front of a "Wind Scour".

Ice overhang. 

It was above this cliff that I ventured a little close to the edge for Mike's liking and for good reason.  Lesson learnt: If you can't see the terrain on the other slope stay right away.

 The very eastern edge of the Vestold Hills.  Behind me looking like cloud is the plateau and the real Antarctica  Not really interesting if white is not your colour. 

 

"Ice Climbing"