Still can't get enough greens in your diet? A Lebanon couple plan to make it easier, fun and downright groovy, with MicroGreenz, a new business venture that they launch today on Kickstarter.

Frank and Lisa Catalano are committed to changing the standard American diet with indoor growing systems that turn our windows into mini-greenhouses. Within 10 days, they say, we can harvest fresh, healthy, nutrient-dense greens for everything from salads to smoothies.

These are not your Granny's greens, although she might get a kick out of the psychedelic branding and names like Purple Power, Hippy Mix and Disco Inferno. And she'll benefit from all of the natural antioxidants and fresh nutrients.

This energetic couple has created a handful of business enterprises, most with an organic grass-growing bent. Frank funded his college education with a lawn care business, earning a bachelor's degree in environmental horticulture from the University of Connecticut. In the early 1990s he launched Organicare Inc., an organic lawn care company for residential properties, which launched franchises in the Northeast. That led to LawnGuru, where he developed the Grass Stitcher, a hand tool used by commercial lawn care services and homeowners to reseed and repair lawns. Next came Live Mulch, a combo of mulch and flower seeds that transform mulch beds into flower beds. Both the stitcher seeder and pre-seeded mulch can be bought online, and John Deer Landscapes supply centers carry the stitcher.

This business venture is all about nutrition, something for which the Catalanos have a passion.

About six years ago, Frank was diagnosed with prostrate cancer. When radiation was recommended after surgery didn't get it all, Frank decided after exhaustive research into his options to try beating the disease through diet and lifestyle instead. Now in their early 50s, the Catalanos are committed vegans and at least 80 percent of what they eat is raw.

"We're Italian-American; we grew up on pasta, cheese, prosciutto," says Lisa, who switched first to a vegetarian diet, then to veganism. "But we totally changed our diet, and now I crave kale. You really can change your palate. And we've never felt better in our lives."

"We eat a lot," says Frank, who has lost 30 pounds. He credits Lisa for creating tasty dishes like cabbage-cilantro coleslaw, chickpea salads and her own veggie burgers.

Their ingenuity and the LiveMulch business concept won them a spot on "Shark Tank," the TV show where entrepreneurs pitch their businesses to potential investors. After a year of preparation and production of their show, the episode didn't air. Instead of giving up, they developed MicroGreenz and decided to try the Kickstarter approach, which links customers and supporters to entrepreneurs and products.

"We decided to follow a passion that more aligns with how we live and what we want to promote," says Frank. "The travesties of the standard American diet are making me crazy--we're deteriorating as we age. This is what's important to me."

While their personal goal is to be self-sustaining between their own garden, tunnel hoop houses, and MicroGreenz growing indoors any season, the Catalanos hope their newest invention will help the rest of us change our ways, too.

"My goal is to teach people how to eat better, to get more nutrients into their diet," says Lisa. "Especially kids, they don't get what they need in the typical American diet."

The indoor growing system includes a clear plastic shelf that sticks onto flat glass windows with suction cups, an oval dish, pellets of compressed coir - a natural plant fiber harvested from coconut hulls - and a shaker jar of micro greens seeds mixed with finely ground coir fiber. Each jar contains enough seeds and coir fiber to produce four batches of micro greens. The Catalanos designed the system and call the plastic shelf a Veg-Ledge.

There are three different veggie seed blends. Frank describes the Disco Inferno, a mixture of radishes, as the tastiest. Purple Power, a brassica mix of kale, kolrabi and red cabbage, is very high in carotenoid anti-oxidants, and Hippy Salad, a mixture of salad greens, is the mildest flavored.

"We always hear that microgreens are so nutritious," says Frank. "In 2012, University of Maryland scientists discovered that the seeds have four to 40 times more nutrients, including antioxidants, than mature plants."

The Catalanos have been perfecting these mixes over the past year, looking for the right combination of flavors from different varieties that sprout at the same time and grow well together. They source their non-GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds from West Coast growers.

The Kickstarter campaign is a chance for fans, supporters and people who want to try the product to get in on the ground floor, not investing in the company, but being the first to try the product.

Although the Catalanos have set a modest goal of $5,000 to be raised by Oct. 30, they hope customer interest will surpass it. Kickstarter rules are that if the goal isn't reached, pledges won't be collected, and donors won't get their MicroGreenz kits.

Supporters can pledge as little as $5 as a vote for good health, or $10, which will get them a shaker jar of MicroGreenz seeds, up to $900, which provides 30 complete kits, enough for a school project. The first 50 pledges of $30 get the best pricing on one MicroGreenz kit, with a shelf, bowl, one jar of greens seeds, the coir soil pellet and a spray mist bottle. See all the pledge and product options at www.kickstarter.com and search for MicroGreenz or go to http://bit.ly/MicroGreenz.

When she's not gardening in Old Lyme, Suzanne Thompson hosts a weekly radio show, "CT Outdoors," on WLIS 1420 AM & WMRD 1150 AM on Saturdays from 1 to 1:30 p.m. Listen to archived shows in the On Demand section of www.wliswmrd.net.