Day 5 of the Microfarm

When I left work on Friday, I did not anticipate much change to take place in my microfarm over the weekend.

Boy was I wrong!

When I checked the microfarm today, I was shocked by the amount of growth that occurred.

The sunflowers and hybrid popcorn had the most dramatic progress. I removed the plastic lids from the sunflower and hybrid popcorn trays since they have started to grow. [You typically remove the lids when about half the tray is filled with growth.]

(Sunflower shoots. If you look closely, you can see the shell of the sunflower seeds still attached to some of the spouts.)

(Hybrid popcorn starting to grow. It is almost as tall as the plastic cover.)

Meanwhile, the beets are starting to make some nice progress. I removed the plastic lid from the beets since there is too much moisture, which is starting to produce some "fuzzy" plants.

(If you look closely, you can see the start of some potential fungal problems in the beet tray.)


The carrots will take a little longer to grow. Small green shoots have started to sprout up but not enough to warrant removing the plastic cover.

(Tiny carrot sprouts starting to grow.)

I am amazed at how quickly plants grow in the microfarm. It is definitely something that will capture the interest of children, who might normally be impatient when growing a traditional outdoor garden.

Over the next few days, I will continue to monitor the microfarm’s progress. I will need to water the trays without the plastic lids a couple of times throughout the week since they no longer have anything to capture moisture. The humidity within the building will dictate how often the plants must be watered.

Stay tuned! More pictures to come later this week!