Regulars (All)

Article - The Bay Gardener by Dr. Francis Gouin; by Dr. Francis Gouin - 8/4/11

August Is a Great Time for Transplanting

Trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials move best now

Many home gardeners wait until spring to transplant in their landscapes. But if perennial plants such as trees and shrubs could talk, they would tell you that August and September are the best times for transplanting. In the Garden this Week Skip the Wound Dressing After Pruning It was once customary to apply an asphalt-based wound dressing to pruned surfaces. Extensive research conducted by Dr. Alex Shigo has conclusively demonstrated that wound dressing actually does a...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 8/4/11

A Dauntless Sportsman

The tidal current was in a difficult phase. We were live-lining Norfolk spot for rockfish at the Bay Bridge, the water was moving fast, and my skiff was drifting as we swam baits deep along the bridge supports. At the helm, I had to avoid colliding with the concrete columns yet stay close enough to allow my partner in the bow, Randy Steck, to work his bait near the bottom of the structures. Fishfinder The summer doldrums are here, but the fish don’t seem to mind....

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 7/28/11

Mid-Summer Nights Delight

The new moon sets the stage

Early risers Friday should look for the last sliver of the waning moon low in the northeast before 6am. After that, the new moon disappears amid the sun’s blinding glare. Monday a thin crescent re-appears low in the west for a half-hour after sunset around 8:15. A half-dozen degrees away shines Mercury, and above that Regulus, the blue-white heart of Leo the lion and the dot of its backward question mark-shaped face. With darkness Tuesday, the...

Article - The Bay Gardener by Dr. Francis Gouin; by Dr. Francis Gouin - 7/28/11

Code Orange Means Danger to Plants As Well As People

Healthier plants mean more oxygen and a healthier you

While relaxing in my hammock under the shade of our mature cherry bark oak trees, I realized that my heritage river birch tree, growing in front on my house, was expressing air pollution symptoms. The older leaves were turning yellow and beginning to fall. I noticed similar symptoms on the magnolia and crape myrtle. In the Garden this Week Make the Right Pruning Cuts After reading last week’s timely tip on summer-pruning trees and shrubs, you’ll no doubt go to...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 7/28/11

The One that Got Away

Far sweeter than the ones I ate

The incoming tide had just started by the time I slowed my skiff at the Bay Bridge. Nervously, I hooked up a nine-inch spot on a 6/0 hook and eased up to one of the larger multiple pilings. It would take a big rockfish to eat this bait. Throwing the motor into neutral in the slack water just down-current of the structure, I lobbed my baitfish out between the large concrete columns. The spot swam off, stripping line from my freely turning spool and making for the bottom 20...

Article - The Bay Gardener by Dr. Francis Gouin; by Dr. Francis Gouin - 7/21/11

Fall Vegetables Start Now

Lots more good can come from your garden

For a feast-full fall garden, now is the time for planning and planting. On the other hand, if you want to take it easy after your spring and summer harvests, then simply plant a cover crop of winter rye in those areas where the crops have been harvested. If you like Brussels sprouts, now is the time to get the seeds in the ground. Brussels sprouts produce biggest yields when planted early so that the stem of each plant grows to its maximum height by mid-September, when the...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 7/21/11

River Monsters in a Mid-Bay Creek

Channel cats give a good fight and good eating

Wife Deborah and I were enjoying a lazy afternoon fishing one of the Bay’s many small tributaries when it happened. I had just made a long cast to a downed tree that, I hoped, harbored more of the fat 10-inch perch that we had been gathering for a fish fry. Fishfinder The big spot have arrived, and panfishing is on fire in the mid-Bay. Hefty croaker, large perch and the Norfolks are here in serious numbers now. At Belvedere Shoals, Podickery, Hackett’s, Tolley...

Article - Our Capital by Ellen Moyer; by Ellen Moyer - 7/21/11

Annapolis Is a Walking Town

But Is It a Walk-Friendly Community?

Annapolis is a walking town. It has always been so. In 1695, Gov. Francis Nicholson designed it so people could move from home to church to pubs to school to businesses in a two- to five-block walk. Compact neighborhoods still make Annapolis a place to walk and wander and wonder. Live here and you can walk to church and to school and to businesses and to pubs. Visit and you can explore your eclectic interests, peer over a garden gate of a colonial house on narrow streets and...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 7/21/11

Losing Our Foothold

What’s next after the shuttle?

Thirty years three months and several days ago, the twin Solid Rocket Boosters strapped to the space shuttle Challenger ignited in unison, discharging a wake of flames and propelling up, up, up against gravity’s pull and into low-earth orbit. I see it still, my high school freshman eyes glued to the television brought into the auditorium. Classes excused, we were all there, watching history, as was most everyone in America, with all three networks and PBS breaking into...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 7/14/11

A Full Moon by Any Name

Look for the thunder

As the sun sets in the northwest at 8:31 Friday, July’s full moon rises in the southeast. Native American and folk lore call this the Thunder Moon, the Hay Moon and the Buck Moon. We’re all familiar with this moon’s strong, mid-summer storms, and farmers still begin their harvest of winter livestock feed at this time. But even with the explosion in the deer population, the Buck Moon is more obscure. But this is the time when male deer regrow their antlers...