CPM’s Maintenance Manager, Wes Driver, and his family do a lot of gardening at home, and have several raised beds in the backyard. Wes is also a decent Techie. Here are some of his best tips for both! Gardening Tips: – Know your USDA Hardiness zone to know when and what to plant. East Texas is in the 8b Zone. Make sure any plants you choose will thrive in this zone. – Start plants indoors early if starting from seed. You can easily start seeds with a full spectrum light and seed-starting mix from a garden center. – Don’t plant seedlings or young plants outside until the threat of frost has passed. Typically March 18th is the average last frost date for this area, but pay attention to the weather forecast to be sure. – Pay attention to how much light plants need and plant accordingly. Vegetables need at least 8 hours each day. – Add compost and well-aged manure to your soil to help increase soil nutrients. Compost can be made from organic material such as lawn clippings, leaves, old potting soil, and some food waste like fruit and vegetables peels & cores. Tech Tips: – Restart your device. Restarting your PC, smartphone, or tablet periodically can refresh system resources and resolve minor glitches. Always try this, too, as the first step of troubleshooting issues. – Backup: Keep your data backed up, either in the cloud or on a separate hard drive in case you need to recover from hardware failure – Boost efficiency with keyboard shortcuts: For example on a PC, Alt-Tab switches between open windows and ⊞ Win+M minimizes all windows.