Goofy Dusts Off Her Green Thumb

As in gardening. As in vegetable gardening.

I recently heard about an organization called Food Not Lawns, and have been reading a lot about urban gardening, CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and the like.

If you think about it, it is a bit odd that we Americans spend so much time and money growing a plant (grass) that has no value other than looking pretty and keeping soil in place. Think of all the businesses built around seeding, aerating, fertilizing, weeding, to make that lawn green, green, GREEN.

Why not take a bit of your lawn and grow something that you can actually use (i.e., eat)?

Nothing like a bit of logic to get me fired up.

Also in the Goofy household, we have been trying to eat food that is fairly close to its source (consider the Twinkie...what is the real source of a Twinkle? Hmm.....). In order to make this more fun, I suggest to Goofy Junior that we grow some vegetables in our backyard. He loved the idea so much that he would not shut up about it. For example, yesterday (Sunday) he came up to me and want to plant the vegetables in our backyard. Right. Now. Mommy.

I had to explain that there was a bit of preparation that was needed first. Like um, buying some seeds. And starting the seeds. And digging a bed in the backyard.

These are times when I love the Internet. I fired up the computer, typed in "starting a vegetable garden" and got a few great instructional sites, plus a site with gallery pictures of lots of vegetables. Goofy Junior & I took a look through the veggie pictures and we had our own little Vegetable Voting Primary.

Broccoli got thumbs-up (yeah, I was surprised too). Carrots got thumbs-down (strange). Eggplant got thumbs-up (I think because it was purple and shiny).

So, I went to my local Lowe's and got some seeds and some starter containers. The winners: Spinach, Broccoli, Carrots, Sweet Peppers and Green Beans.

I'm hoping to start the Great Goofy Vegetable Endeavor next week. I'll do some periodic posts (maybe even with (gasp!) photos!) to document our progress.