Earth Day’s major focus is saving our natural resources and giving back to our environment. By planting trees and flowers, humans can help. Flowers, trees and shrubs help to reduce dust and smoke from the air to improve air quality. During photosynthesis, flowers’ leaves absorb harmful carbon dioxide gases and discharge oxygen, increasing oxygen levels in the surrounding area.

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This seed starting setup was new to me this year. Supposedly, the white holders will last for many, many years and then are recyclable once their life's use has someday run out. The sponge pods are comprised of a combination of coconut coir, peat moss, and bio char and are enriched with oilseed extract, giving the seedlings an extra boost of nutrition. So far, I'm not sure about any of this. Although this method was faster in getting the seedlings to germinate, the sponges have produced gangly seedlings that aren't developing more than the first two leaves. I planted this back around the first of March. I'm now getting some damping off and no real growth from the seeds that sprouted weeks ago.

At this point, I think I preferred the peat pots (which were earth friendly) that I've used in previous years. Those seedlings were slower to sprout, but they didn't grow leggy; plus, they quickly grew more leaves once they got going. I had no damping off.

This leaves me with an Earth Day dilemma about what I should do next year. The white framework above seems to be undesirable Styrofoam with a alternate name. Not so easy to recycle later on as was advertised. However, if it lasts for 15 to 20 years before sending in to be recycled, this is not as bad for the environment as it could have been.

This kind of means I'm stuck with this seed starting method, whether I like it or not. Beyond being extremely expensive to purchase, I can't just now throw it away after one season. That would be environmentally unfriendly... When I used peat pots, there was no recycling dilemma. Peat pots merely enriched the earth as they dissolved.