I almost bought Romaine plants, but decided I'd wait another week. The nursery had some in an unheated greenhouse, and she said they were covered in ice yesterday morning but were fine by noon. Annie - you have been busy! All I got planted today was four short rows of peas under a trellis. Planted "Wandos" this year instead of the usual Early Spring pea.

Kathy, Oops! I bought one at Wal-Mart but it is the HARRIS Farmer's Almanac Gardener's Guide, not the Old Farmer's. Sorry!!! I think the Harris one is also the one I saw down in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. If I see an Old Farmer's one, will let you know. I'm wondering if this is yet another gardening publication that has folded. We've lost so many the last few years! Hope you find the one you're looking for. Dawn

IM kind of a pretty big weather buff myself, and I used to get the farmers Almanac every year when I was a kid as well. I still read it for its interesting articles and such, but really, I think that NOAA is more accurate as its more science based rather than on oak trees "MASTING", and other natural phenomena. For those who don't know, "MASTING" is when Oak trees overproduce acorns to an extreme amount. It happens from time to time some reigons, and from what I understand is more of a survival insurance than anything else. It happend here several years ago, and it was truly incredible just how much acorns were produced. Never seen anything like it. I think it only occurs once in like every 50 or 100 years or something. Anyway...Im still hoping for ( and thinking that it will be) a very mild winter here in the Mid Atlantic. We have the same saying here... " if you don't like the weather in D.C., wait 5 minutes". While its not that volatile all the time, we do get fairly changing weather for large portions of the year, especially spring and fall, we were can see 40 degree differences in temps in sometimes as little as 12 hours. The D.C. Metro just does not have the same winters it had regularly up until about 1995 or so. The last true "blizzard" we had here was in 1996. The rivers and bay almost NEVER freeze over anymore in the last 10-12 years here, and seeing teens and low 20's in the city is fairly uncommon anymore. Were also very hurricane prone here as well, although most are usually strong to medium tropical storms by the time they get here. Although, a few have come through at a category 1 hurricane, like Isabel in 2003. IIRC, it was finally downgraded to a Tropical Storm once it moved just north of the D.C. Metro. Its center passed about 50 miles due west of downtown D.C., putting most of the metro area, and most of VA/MD in the worst / strongest quadrant of the storm. What a trying 24 hours that was. I rode it out in my east facing 14th floor apt at the time, and we had sustained winds up there of 82 MPH for several hours at the hight of it, with a gust to 106. That was the gust that blew the anomometer off of the balcony railing. I can tell you the vines that I could not get down, and the 10' river birch in a large half whisky barrel were all defoliated by the winds, and quite a few of the windows were blown out on the east and south facing windows of the high rises we lived in. Im glad we heavily tapped our large plate glass windows up, because those were the ones that were breaking into peoples apts. Anyway, lots of varied weather here. It keeps things very interesting. I just wish we were 1 zone warmer! Who knows, in the close in dowtown areas of NoVA and DC we have moved into a zone 8 in the last 10-14 years, maybe a zone 9 is coming? Im not for "global warming" but man it would be nice to have even milder winters than we do now.

7thLegend, expecting 60 degrees and sunny here for the Superbowl. LOL! Not as cold in February as it used to be though. We will see. Don't place much belief in the Farmer's Almanac. Do they ever predict anything but cold and snowy for the Northeast in February?! As for the hurricane forecast, this certainly has been a very, very strange season! Was expected to very bad, but abnormally quiet! Probably one of he strangest seasons I can remember. Don't know what to make of it.--May be a very late season. Like X-Mas storms?! We had ours late last year--October 31st, name of Sandy.