A few weeks ago we got a small package from my aunt and uncle who live in Maine. Inside the package were 8 envelopes full of seeds and a packet of information about each of the plants. With a quick trip to our local home center we ended up with enough starting trays for 250 plants. It took us about an hour to fill the organic seed trays with potting soil and to plant the seeds. After one week we noticed that about 70% of the seeds were now plants with the Scarlett Runners towering over the other plants.

The seeds included; Morning Glory’s, Zinna Lavender, Scarlet Runners, Mixed Marigold, Zinna Mixed, and Orange Marigolds.

If you are interested in starting your flowers in the organic trays be sure to save the frame and roof so you can use them again next year. The “house” is a great way to provide the seedlings a warm moist home until they sprout up a couple of inches. With the clear roof your seedlings will be able to collect enough sunlight. One thing to keep in mind is that seedlings like to grow toward the sun and they will grow sideways if they don’t have light directly over them. We moved ours outdoors after one week and now they are growing upwards.

Be careful when you pick your potting soil, mine contained to many chunks of mulch and not enough soil. These chunks prevented me from packing the soil tight enough so some of the trays are only half filled with soil. For another project I used Miracle Grow potting soil and I had much better luck.

If you decide to start your own garden this year put some thought into savings the seed for next year. If you have enough extra seeds they make a great gift for family and friends. It’s hard to measure the amount of enjoyment these seeds have given us in the past couple of weeks and they are not even flowers yet! Thanks, Aunt Susan and Uncle Bob.

Most of the green blogs that I visit have been spreading the word about Earth Day for the past month.  A month ago April 22nd was about a month away…………………..about 2 hours ago I figured out that today is April 22nd.  I admit that I seldom think of what day it is or at times even what month it is.   My promptness depends on events being in my PDA or people e-mailing me reminders.  The funny thing is that I never miss business appointments, family events  or social functions so long as I key them into my PDA.

In my feeble effort to repent for forgetting about Earth Day, I have decided to officially extended Earth Day.  From this day forth Earth Day is now everyday excluding Christmas.  I excluded Christmas for the religious people and the people who like to create landfills of garbage on that special day.  When you think about it, who really cares about the earth when you have piles of gifts in front of you?  Now that I have granted you one day off a year you can focus on the other days and what you can do to make our earth a nicer place.

The picture is from a site called http://www.care2.com, I joined there last week in order to network with other people that care about the Earth.  They have some really good ideas on how everyone can treat our planet with a little more respect.  Here’s my own short list of baby steps;

1.  Plant a tree.

2.  Grow a garden.

3.  Take a hike in a local state forest.

4.  Go camping.

5.  Turn off your T.V. and spend some time outdoors.

6.  Buy, rent or steal a canoe and enjoy a nice journey on a local river or lake.  If you venture into the ocean, trust me and leave the canoe at home they don’t handle waves that well.

Once you have tried a few of the above steps ask yourself how you can protect your environments air, soil, and water.  If you can’t think of any ideas take a look at some of the blogs on my blogroll or some of the sites that I’ve “stumbled” at stumbleupon.com.

Charles Faust, Green Home Improvements