Bringing the micro-farm back online

   The Winter is definitely here and the time has come for indoor farming.  I never really explained the set up I used when I last mentioned the micro-farm.  I was playing a video game, yes a video game, called Harvest Moon.  The kids were playing it and I was attracted to it because I've always wanted to be a farmer.  Anyways, I got tired of pretending and decided to try as much farming as I could reasonably do in an apartment with three kids and a busy life.  Above you see me sifting through my worm compost to separate the worms from usable compost.  I figured I'd try to keep things as organic as possible. 

   I took a 10 gallon aquarium and taped white copy paper to the sides to use as reflectors.  I then inserted empty, plastic, strawberry and lettuce containers with a mix of compost and soil, and added a sprinkling of lettuce seeds on top.  I added a very light sprinkling of soil on top of that and watered it all well.  What you see above is the result after a little over a week. 

I place the whole assembly by the window and suspend two compact fluorescent bulbs over them for additional light.  The natural light I get is less than ideal.  It a few more weeks I'll have a decent batch of lettuce, which I plan on using for my packed lunches--biggest bang for the effort and the buck.