How Do I Grow Tomatoes In The House?

Look at this weird tomato. Granted, it was starting to become a bit soft but that's no reason for the seeds to start sprouting already. I'm wondering if this poor tomato underwent false storage somehow to cause such a strange phenomenon. You never know what they are doing to your food before you get it.

I've tried to grow full sized tomatoes in this house by plucking volunteer plants from the garden along with some dirt and bringing them inside. Aphids were my reward. This time, I shook all the dirt possible off of the volunteer tomato from the garden and transplanted it into new store bought soil. 

The plant took off but the insufficient amount of sunlight in the house meant it died. Even up next to our large windows. I couldn't put it under grow lights in the basement because there is no heat down there without the wood stove burning and the weather wasn't cold enough.

In February when I start plants, the stove is going. I've tried growing lettuce too upstairs and down. Lettuce doesn't require much light and a few herbs seem to get by though the leaves aren't as big as I'd like. But nope, lettuce won't grow. They just get spindly and tall and then die.

It's not that I have a brown thumb because I grow a nice garden outside, it's just transferring the crops inside that poises the problem. Oh how I'd love to grow my own tomatoes and lettuce in the winter. We have a very small store here in town but no organic produce. We live in the toolees as we say. A long ways from anywhere. 

So have any of you some advice? Tomatoes from our stores make me leery.