Most Minnesotans spend the month of January by a nice warm fire, or at least by a nice warm TV.  Not so, the avid gardener!  There are things to do, last minute trimming, tipping a floribunda rose that you missed in October, cleaning up all those dead stalks that didn’t get clipped.  Spring is just around the corner, so get to work!  Unfortunately, weather that's good for winter gardening isn’t necessarily good for winter gardeners.  Of course, I'm talking about cold injury, something that’s always a potential winter danger up here in the Northern Midwest.  An unwary gardener can easily lose bits and pieces of his anatomy out in the yard if he's not respectful of the cold.  Not all of us have the luxury of a heated greenhouse.

Typically, you're out late in the afternoon, trying to get just a few garden chores done.  The sun is waning and the wind is picking up on a frigid stretch of garden.  That's an ideal set-up for freezing some part of your anatomy--frostbite!

The mildest form of frostbite is frostnip, something that almost all of us have experienced.  First, your skin pales or turns red and feels very cold.  Keep trying to clip off all those “witches’ brooms” and you start feeling prickling and numbness in the exposed skin.  As you finally head back to the house and heat up, your skin warms and you may feel pain and tingling.  Frostnip doesn't permanently damage the skin but it sure can be uncomfortable!

If you just have to get all those chores done, no matter what and your cold exposure increases you will progress to "superficial frostbite." The skin that was previously red from frostnip turns a pale white.  As you rewarm, the skin may look mottled, blue or purple.  You may notice stinging, burning and swelling.  A fluid-filled blister sometimes appears 24 to 36 hours later.  With superficial frostbite you could have some permanent tissue damage.

If you stay out working in the bitter cold even longer, you can progress to severe (deep) frostbite.  Here the skin and underlying tissues freezes solid. The exposed finger, toe or nose becomes numb.  All sense of cold, pain, or discomfort is lost. The joints don't bend.  The muscles don't work.  Again, blisters may pop up 24 to 48 hours later.  The underlying skin then turns black and hard as tissue dies. You're in big trouble!

If you are experiencing anything more severe than frostnip, you should seek medical attention.  Of course, there are a number of things you can do to protect yourself from getting into that situation.  First of all, wear suitable clothing.  That seems like a no-brainer, but how often do you go outside to do chores that “will just take a minute” and stay an hour?

The risk of frostbite increases dramatically in temperatures below 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Wind chills below - 16 degrees Fahrenheit can cause severe frostbite in less than 30 minutes.

A number of things can increase your chances of getting frostbite.  Alcohol or drugs, smoking, dehydration, mental or physical exhaustion all lower your resistance to frostbite.  Being at high altitude reduces oxygen supply to tissues and allows damage to occur more easily.  Keep that in mind if you are taking a winter vacation to the ski slopes.

One final caution: if you or someone with you begins to experience intense shivering, slurred speech, loss of coordination or drowsiness, get out of the cold fast and seek medical attention.  These are signs of hypothermia--a lowering of your body core temperature.  If that continues, loss of consciousness, heart rhythm disturbance and death can follow.  All that “getting ready for spring” stuff can wait ‘till spring!

Photo Credits: Wikimedia Commons (1), vriethael.deviantart.com (All Creative Commons) (2)