55February 11, 2016

The forecast is for very cold weather this weekend. You probably look forward to that as much as I do. Hey, if we hatred winter that much we would all move south.

Cold weather brings some perils to many things. For instance, you may have some houseplants that are on a windowsill or in a bow or bay window. When nighttime temperatures drop, it may get cold enough near the glass to cause damage to your plants. Fortunately, many of us have the new thermal windows that can help to prevent this from happening. When nights are cold, you may want to pull the plants away from the glass just to be on the safe side.

We all had some snow in the last few days. Luckily, a lot of the Friday snow melted on Saturday and Sunday. However, I noticed on the driveway on Monday morning that some of that melted snow had turned to ice. With a new coating of snow, that ice can be hidden under the snow. The weather forecast does not show much of a chance for that snow to melt. It would be advisable to get some ice melting product onto the walkways and driveway. Many of you have pets. Some ice melting products can burn their paws. There are pet safe ice melting products that won’t bother their paws. As an added bonus, these types of ice melt products have little effect on your lawn and other plants.

There are other products that don’t melt the ice but they do make the ice less of a hazard. I found a product called Traction Magic. You sprinkle a little bit of this product onto an icy surface and it clings to the ice and creates a rough surface on the ice. This makes it less likely that you will slip on the ice. You can also use this product if your car gets stuck in snow or on an icy patch. All you need to do is sprinkle some on your tires and some on the ground near the tire and it will give the tires extra grip and allow you to get your vehicle out of trouble.

We carry both the pet safe ice melt and the Traction Magic in our store.

By this time of the year, many people get itchy to begin planting something. Many people want to try to plant some seeds for the tomato plants that they will eventually put into the garden. Keep in mind that you only need about 8 weeks from the time you start the seeds indoors to the time that the plants are the right size to go into the garden. If you start the seeds too early, the plants will stretch out and become tall and floppy. If you figure that you will set tomato plants in the garden around the end of May that would mean that you would start the seeds indoors around the end of March. If you want to start some seeds now, go for the early vegetable. You could start broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, onions and leeks. You could also start some pansy seeds and snapdragon seeds for your early outdoor flowers.

Well, that’s all for this week. I’ll talk to you again next week.