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And one bright, streaking light

As the sky grows dark, the first light you’re likely to spot is Jupiter high in the west, slipping toward the horizon and setting around midnight. Above it are Pollux and Castor, the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini. Orange-hued Pollux is the 17th brightest star, and white-hot Castor is the 23rd brightest. But at magnitude –2, Old Jove is exponentially brighter.
    Mars is another easy target, appearing high in the south at dark and setting in the west around 3:30am. While it is no brighter than a strong star, its steady red glow stands out among the stars.
    You’ll have to hunt for Mercury amid the ashen light of sunset, when the innermost planet hovers within 10 degrees of the west-northwest horizon. Mercury reaches its farthest point from the sun on the 25th, when it appears 15 degrees above our horizon at sunset and remains visible for almost two hours. These next couple weeks are the best chance all year to see this elusive planet at night. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights look for Mercury between the two stars that mark the horns of Taurus the bull.
    As Mercury sinks toward the northwest horizon, Saturn rises in the southeast. The ringed planet is also making its best nighttime appearance of the year and shines overhead from dusk until dawn. Below it snakes the form of Scorpius punctuated by red-glowing Antares.
    Venus is brilliant as the Morning Star low in the east at dawn. It rises around 5am, and as daybreak nears it blazes from its perch 15 degrees above the horizon. Keep an eye on its leisurely climb and you can spot it shining through the glare of early morning.
    Another bright light pierces the darkness this week, as the International Space Station makes several good appearances. At its dimmest, the ISS rivals any star; at its peak, it can rival Venus. But while the stars and planets give you time to pause, the space station streaks by in a matter of minutes. Traveling 17,000 miles an hour, it orbits the earth every 90 minutes. Unlike the lights from a passing airplane, you aren’t seeing the lights aboard the ISS. Instead, hovering 250 miles over the planet, the station receives plenty of sunlight, which is reflected back to our eyes.
    Friday morning the ISS appears in the southwest at 5:16am, climbing toward the celestia zenith, then disappearing in the northeast at 5:20. Saturday it appears almost 30 degrees above the south-southwest horizon at 4:30am, climbs another 30 degrees, then vanishes three minutes later in the east-northeast. Tuesday the station appears almost directly overhead at 3:42am and shoots to the north before disappearing two minutes later. For more detailed sighting opportunities, visit

The female harvest is the ­tipping point

Maryland’s favorite crustacean is in serious trouble, according to Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ 2013 Winter Dredge Survey for blue crabs. Once again, the species is teetering at the edge of collapse.
    The numbers approach population levels in 2008, when the feds labeled the fishery a disaster.
    DNR reads this year’s numbers differently: “crabbing is at safe levels,” according to a recent press release. “The crabbing harvest remained at a safe level for the sixth consecutive year.”
    That interpretation begs comment.
    During the six-year period of presumably safe harvest levels, the overall crab population plunged by at least 70 percent. Is that not alarming?
    Commercial and recreational harvest limits are the primary management tools for controlling crab populations. But they went virtually unused for six straight years.
    Anson Hines, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, confirms fears about continuing difficulties with Chesapeake blue crab populations.
    In the 2008 crisis, part of the problem was harvest quotas based on flawed science. DNR had long claimed that the female blue crab spawned only once in her lifetime, so any size mature female could be taken without reducing the species’ ability to reproduce.    
    When that science was revisited, it was found that mature females spawn again and again. The overall female population, quite possibly, was the key to blue crab stability.
    By then, crab numbers were so low that the natural resources departments in both Maryland and Virginia — plus the Potomac River Fishery — began cooperating to rebuild the devastated species for the first time ever.
    In 2008-2009, winter dredging of dormant females in the Virginia portion of the Bay was halted. Maryland attempted to reduce fishing of females down the Bay in the fall. These actions achieved unprecedented protection for females throughout the Bay.
    These moves were a particularly big deal for Virginia because the crabbing industry in the lower Chesapeake depends significantly on female crabs. As the females prefer the higher salinity of the southern waters, their numbers are densest there. That’s also where all blue crabs spawn. This sparsely populated area relies on commercial fishing for jobs and income. Most of the cost of the fishery reduction was absorbed by Virginia watermen.
    The cutback led to a swift and extraordinary population resurgence. Within two years, the blue crab population rebuilt itself. The Bay saw some of its best recent crabbing seasons.
    But with that population build-up came commercial demands for renewed access to the females.
    During all of these periods of crisis, harvest of females continued under varying degrees of limitation throughout the Bay.
    The harvest of immature female blue crabs by the soft crab industry has never abated. Tens of thousands of small (three-and-a-half-inch minimum size), immature, never-spawned peeler and soft-phase females are harvested with scant control over limits.
    Just four years ago, recognizing at some level a population decline in progress, DNR made keeping female hard crabs by recreational crabbers illegal.
    That move generally transferred that portion of the recreational harvest over to the commercial sector. DNR did little else to abate the harvest of the sooks. What followed was the ecological crisis of 2014.
    This situation points to a serious and continuing shortcoming in the philosophy and management of the species. Based on DNR’s own statistics, from 1990 to 2000 the population of reproductive females in the lower Bay declined by more than 80 percent during the spawning season. The population remained at record low levels until 2008 and triggered the declaration of disaster.
    Now again in 2014, populations are back to seriously low levels, quite possibly because of the continuing and substantial commercial harvest of female crabs. Is that policy wise?

It’s good to eat and pretty enough for the flower garden

Asparagus is a vegetable that’s good looking enough to be planted in the flower garden. The foliage makes an excellent garden backdrop or can be used in sunny beds to give light shade to flowers that prefer partial shade.  I remember a flower garden where asparagus provided shade for an under-story planting of impatients and verbena. The effect was most attractive as the asparagus foliage created the impression of looking through a light fog.
    The lacy foliage varies from light-green to purplish-green depending on variety. Several harvests of the spears can be made before you allow the stems to grow to maturity.  
    To keep volunteers from taking over your flower garden, seek to buy male plants. If that’s not doable, dig out the berry-producing female plants.
    Asparagus requires advance preparations and well-drained soil.
    Asparagus are grown from roots purchased from nurseries, garden catalogs or garden centers. The roots are generally packaged in bundles of 10 to 25. Most asparagus roots are dug up in the fall and placed in cold storage for spring planting. However, soil preparation should start in the fall with a soil test. Asparagus is a long-term crop, so the pH and nutrient concentrations should be at their optimum levels from the very beginning.
    In commercial production, roots are planted deep to facilitate harvesting and minimize irrigation. Mechanical harvesters cut spears below the surface of the soil.
    Home gardeners who plant their asparagus roots deep can cut the spears underground, harvesting white-stemmed spears. Asparagus crowns can alternately be planted just a few inches below the surface of the soil. But shallow-planted beds are likely to need irrigating.
     To prepare an asparagus bed for cutting spears below the surface of the ground, remove the top six inches of soil in a trench approximately 12 inches wide. In the bottom of the trench, add a two-inch-thick layer of compost and spade or rototill as deeply as possible. Cover the excavated soil with an inch of compost and blend it with the soil. In the spring, remove about a two-inch layer of soil from the ditch and spread the roots of each asparagus crown, spacing crowns a foot apart. Cover the crowns with two to three inches of the amended soil. Check the trench weekly and add additional soil as the stems elongate. Avoid covering the spears.
    If you are planting the crowns shallow, incorporate a one- to two-inch layer of compost as deep as possible into the soil and dig a three- to four-inch-deep trench for planting the crowns.
    Do not harvest asparagus spears until the beginning of the third growing season. The first harvest should be limited to two or three cuttings. At the end of the harvesting season, mulch the bed with a two-inch layer of compost. For additional growth, spread one-half cup of calcium nitrate per 10 square feet.
    The onion hoe is the ideal tool for weeding asparagus beds.
    I apply Preen only after the harvest is complete with a second application in September to control winter weeds. Preen, which is made from fluoride, is cleared for use on vegetables and will control grasses but only a few broadleaf weeds. It is most effective when applied on clean, cultivated soil and watered or cultivated into the soil immediately. Preen provides weed control for only six to eight weeks.


Spread the joy of the night sky

The moon waxes through evening skies this week, reaching full phase Wednesday. Look for it just a few degrees to the west of Mars Saturday. The next night it is flanked with Mars to the right and Spica even closer to its left. Tuesday the near-full moon is five degrees to the right of Saturn and 10 degrees to the left Wednesday. The moon is so bright, you’ll have to hunt for the ringed planet.
    This is Saturn’s best appearance, as the planet reaches opposition, rising around sunset and remaining visible until daybreak.
    Jupiter is high in the southwest at sunset, the brightest nighttime object until the moon rises and an easy target until settnig around midnight. Castor and Pollux, the twins of Gemin, which actually appear quite distinct from one another, are just above Jupiter,
    If you have a clear view to the west-northwest horizon, look for Mercury emerging from the haze of evening twilight before setting itself shortly after 9pm. The planet is quite bright and grows more so in the coming nights, appearing higher each night through much of May.
    Venus is brilliant as the Morning Star low in the east during dawn. With binoculars or a small telescope, look to the upper left of Venus for distant Uranus, which is only two degrees away Thrusday the 15th.
    Saturday marks spring Astronomy Day, an annual event begun by California astronomer Doug Berger in 1973. The idea began with astronomers setting up telescopes in busy urban locations so that city-dwellers could be introduced to the joys of the night sky. Now it’s commemorated around the world by friends and family gathering to exploring the heavens together.

Hoe, mulch or a touch of herbicide






You don’t have to wait until 2061 to delight in its offspring

A thin sliver of the waxing crescent moon rises Thursday evening just after sunset, its tips pointing almost straight up. Look a few degrees below its outside curve for Aldebaran, the orange eye of Taurus the bull. High above the moon is Jupiter, shining brighter than any star-like object.
    Friday evening the moon has halved the distance from Jupiter, which is 20 degrees — two fist-widths held at arm’s length — straight up. To the moon’s left is Betelgeuse, the shoulder of Orion. Far to the south is Sirius, the brightest star. Sunset Saturday reveals the growing moon just 10 degrees below Jupiter in the west. Betelgeuse is almost equidistant below the moon. By Sunday, the moon is less than 10 degrees to the south of Jupiter.
    Far to the east of Jupiter is Mars. Shining at magnitude –1.2, the red planet is brighter than any star except Sirius. Compare it to Spica, in the constellation Virgo, 10 degrees to the east. At 11pm Mars is at its highest and is due south. It sets around 4:30am.
    Saturn, the dimmest of the naked-eye planets, trails well behind Mars. But as the ringed planet nears opposition May 10, it puts on its best face. Look for it rising in the east around sunset, a steady golden glow amid the much dimmer stars of Libra. The rings are opened at roughly a 20-degree angle, and are easy to discern in even a modest telescope.
    As the darkness begins to fade, Venus rises in the east, blazing at magnitude –4.2. The Morning Star is so bright that you can still find it in the east an hour after sunrise.
    If you’re up waiting for Venus, you may spot a streak of light crossing the heavens. This is the annual return of the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, which peaks Monday and Tuesday. This should be a good showing, as the first-quarter moon sets just after midnight. The meteors appear to emanate from the constellation Aquarius, but they can appear anywhere on the celestial dome. The best viewing is in the nether hours between midnight and dawn, when it could rain up to 30 meteors an hour. While not likely to produce a great storm, the Eta Aquarids are steady, stretching out a couple weeks before and after the peak.
    Twice a year the earth passes through a stream of debris left in the wake of Halley’s Comet. While the famed comet only visits the inner solar system every 75 years, it has been doing so for millennia, leaving ring upon ring of jetsam with each passing. These countless bits of ice and dust date to the formation of the solar system, and as earth plows into them, they ignite upon contact with our atmosphere. At the other side of the sun, earth crosses Halley’s path again in the fall, resulting in the Orionid meteor shower.

You don’t have to wait until 2061 to delight in its offspringHill in compost to enjoy potatoes early and late

There is nothing like going into the garden and digging a nice big potato with a thin skin for dinner. A freshly harvested white potato from a plant still actively growing guarantees you not only great satisfaction but also a vegetable that is filled with vitamins because you don’t have to remove the skin to eat it.
    If you plan ahead, you need not wait for the potato plant to die back to the ground before you start harvesting.
    It’s common to grow potatoes by hilling them with soil, which stimulates the plants to generate rhizomes on which the potato grows. Part of that way of planting is to wait to harvest the potatoes until after the plants have died back to the ground. Late-harvested potatoes store better. But you have to wait to eat freshly dug potatoes. That’s a delicacy I enjoy as early as possible in the summer, so I hill my potatoes using compost made from leaves raked the previous fall. The compost still contains a large percentage of partially decayed leaves, but it is rich brown, light and easy to handle. I apply six inches of the compost as soon as the plants have grown a foot tall. Lift the bottom leaves of each plant so they don’t come in contact with the ground but are supported by the compost.
    As soon as the plants have grown another 10 to 12 inches, I apply another six to eight inches of compost, again lifting the bottom leaves from the ground and firmly applying compost along the stems. Another application of compost is made after the plants have grown another foot, which generally occurs when the plants are beginning to flower. By the third application of compost, the mounds surrounding the plants are about 18 inches high. After the third round, I hoe a thin layer of soil over the hills of compost to help keep it in place. Covering the compost with soil also helps to keep it moist so that it will continue to decompose while in the garden.
    Since the compost remains loose, it is easy to sneak your hands down around the roots of the plants and harvest a potato or two without disturbing the plant. Harvest no more than two potatoes from each plant this way.
    After the tops of the plants have died back to the ground, the potatoes are easy to dig because most will have grown in the mound of compost, though some of the larger potatoes will have grown in the soil beneath the mound of compost.
    The area where the potatoes had been growing can now be raked smooth and lightly roto-tilled in preparation for planting the fall crop of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower or rutabaga.
    Over the years, I have found fewer potato beetle problems when using this method. Other compost-hill growers have reported similar results.






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This pollution is endangering our night skies
