What veggie plants you shouldn't buy

Vegetables and herb plants are oh-so-enticing when they're lined up in their rows at the garden store or farmers market. But the dollars can quickly add up.

Starting from seed can be deceptively easy, even going into June in Indiana (later if you're confident enough to do a planting for a later-fall harvest.) It's so easy in fact, that you could be spending twice or even four times the amount of a package of seeds on on package of plants.

Stick to seeds for these vegetables, which are easy to grow:

Lettuce
Beans
Peas
Radishes
Carrots
Spinach

These add the extra opportunities to sow continuously over the season and into the fall.

I've found most herbs to be easy to grow from seed as well.

Looking for a start on your gardening season? We're giving away a brown-thumb gardening seed kit this week, featuring lettuce and other easy-to-grow vegetables.

GPB: Guerrilla Gardening

"Fighting the filth with forks and flowers" - this undercover mission is more than a community clean-up day. Instead, it's becoming a cause that's getting thousands to take back the streets in an unusual way.

Learn more about the illicit act of guerrilla gardening over at the Green Phone Booth.

Gardening giveaway: Calling all brown thumbs!

Are you a brown thumb? Do you swear you can't grow a thing?

Can you look at a plant and make it wilt?

Relax...we all have those days. I'll be honest and confess that I killed every single one of the seeds I started this spring when I got a little overzealous in transporting them outdoors.

But I'm trying again. And if you are too, I've got a giveaway for you.

Next week, I'm giving away the Black Thumb Seed Collection from Nature's Crossroads, a Bloomington, Ind.-based seed company. The set includes one packet each of pea, radish, lettuce, flower, and kale seeds plus detailed instructions.

You can enter these ways:

1. Post a comment with your worst gardening mishap.
2. Sign up for the RSS feed.
3. Tweet about it.
4. Blog about it.
5. Promote it on Facebook.

The contest ends May 2 at midnight EDT, and I'll announce the winner soon after. Good luck!

In the wake of our Great TV Rebellion

Tuning off TVs. It's something that's tougher and tougher to do these days. In the wake of big screens, iPhones, TVs in every room, portable (or installed) DVD players in your cars, and don't forget, YouTube, it is getting harder and harder to shut out the media.

I thought as parents we were doing a decent job of limiting screen time in our home. While we can't control day care, we can control what happens here. And that was largely limited to the occasional movie, the rare cooking shows and a routine of PBS Kids.

I thought we were doing well. Then the unthinkable happened.

Wednesday night, I heard the fateful words from my husband's mouth: "No TV for a week!"

And my first thought was, What have you done?

Because, as a parent, while I limit the TV use, we do use it strategically. I've been known to let them settle down with a show while cutting food or cooking it over a hot stove - far better than an injury or burn. Or on a particularly hectic night, a few minutes can help them wind down when a book doesn't. But now that option was gone.

But more than a week after the fact, I can tell you, we survived. It wasn't easy, but we did it.

Instead of screen time, we all played in the garden, where my son discovered that he could make mud for the first time. (Thank goodness he doesn't like to get his hands dirty!)

Instead of screen time, we went to a home improvement store for a kids activity, and my daughter built her own mini garden planter, painted a pot and picked out an herb for her to care for.

Instead of screen time, we got dirty. Not with mud, but with the goofiness that comes from making homemade whipped cream for strawberries and butter in a mixer, following an unbelievable sale on organic whipping cream at the grocery. (At 75 cents a pint, I'm set for some time.)

Instead of screen time, we went to the library - and got books (instead of the freebie movies that my oldest tends to beg for). And we've read them, learning about gardening and lynxes and Puerto Rico (OK, that one's for me.)

Instead of screen time, we got sun time - riding our trikes and bikes, playing soccer, taking walks, going to the park.

Instead of screen time, we had family time. Real family time. And that's what mattered.

Need a little encouragement to try going TV-free? We're in the middle of the Biomicry Insitute's "Great TV Rebellion," encouraging us to shut down TV and tune into nature for Earth Week. (They even have an activity guide on their site, however, it's geared for school-age children.)

A little housekeeping

Housekeeping has been all I've been able to accomplish this week, with company coming in. But here's a few fast thoughts on a Friday morning:

As it's been a month since I drew our original winner of the Fairy Garden Kit with no response, I'm picking another winner. This time it's Julie S. in Texas. Please e-mail me at goinggreenmama at gmail by next Saturday with your mailing address, or we'll pick another winner. I'd hate for the kit to go to waste this spring!

I'll have another spring giveaway to announce tomorrow.

Be sure to check out our discussion on personal vs. political action on the APLS Carnival, hosted this month at the Green Phone Booth. And weigh in on what you'd like to see with the Carnival here.

And can I just brag that we actually picked radishes this week and we have strawberries starting to form? :-)

Have a great weekend!
Robbie