For all the teachers and PTA presidents out there reading Garden Variety - have I got the book for you.

"How to Grow a School Garden: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers," written by members of the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance, is a step-by-step pictoral guide to creating and maintaining a school garden and linking it to the curriculum.

Post a comment here and I will randomly select someone to receive a copy of the book.

It is hard to believe, but school gardens are not without controversy.

School gardens have been criticized as unsafe, unhealthy and a waste of time.

And school gardens have also been criticized for giving poor and minority students the wrong message - that they have not moved beyond the sharecropping, migrant-working lives of their ancestors.

I swear, I am not making this up.

Clicking on Green Links will take you to a third-party e-commerce site. These sites are not operated by The Baltimore Sun. The Sun Editorial staff is not involved in any way with Green Links or with these third-party sites.