Week three of the lettuce experiment. I swapped out the string holding up the lights with linked chain and an s-hook on each. It makes moving the lights up or down as needed much easier. I am having to move the lights up about 2-3 times a week as the plants grow. Later this week or early next I will harvest the larger leaves and move the lights back down. I did taste one yesterday and they are very good. No bitterness, very sweet and crisp. The basement stays a fairly constant 68F.

There is a noticable difference between the plants under the cool/warm lights (left) and the natural sunshine bulbs (right). I will replace the cool/warm bulbs with two more NS bulbs soon.

My biggest problem is keeping the mosquito larvae out of the water. I found a basement window that has a leak. I’ll seal around that and hope that will keep any more from getting in. I don’t want to use any chemicals as we will be eating the lettuce so for now I monitor and change water as needed. I am going to look into an aquarium syphon to possibly syphon them off as I find them . They are very easy to see throught the clear plastic container.