Soil

Spring is almost here, and green groups are recruiting volunteers to watchdog Maryland's river and stream health. The Severn River Association is looking for help to protect the Chesapeake Bay tributary from  mud washing off construction sites in spring rains.  A recent audit by Community & Environmental Defense Services, a consulting firm, estimated that the Severn is being polluted with up to 1.4 million pounds of pollutants because...

We are moving into a new home and purchased a number of plants for landscaping. Our landscaper recommended that we postpone putting any of the plants in the ground. He says that planting them now will not be beneficial because the ground will not provide the nutrients they will need. Instead, we still have them in their pots with mulch all around them. Is this a good solution, or would we be better off going ahead and planting them now? Many plants will not survive if soil temperatures around their roots dip too far below freezing.

Is there such thing as leaf-cycling? I grass-cycle. Do leaves add fertilizer to lawns like grass clippings do? How deep can I make the shredded leaves? Green organic materials are high in nitrogen. Grass-cycling can add as much as half of your lawn's yearly nitrogen fertilizer. Brown organic materials, such as leaves, improve soil structure and add some nitrogen, though not as much as is added by the same weight of grass clippings. By all means, leaf-cycle by mowing your fallen leaves and grass.

Early in the evening, right in our back yard, about a dozen dragon flies swarmed in a broad circle 10 feet off the ground. The spectacle, one I'd never seen before, reminded me of an air show without the crowds, noise and drama. Curiously, though, our yard is landlocked and nowhere near water. Water, you see, attracts dragonflies to the flying and ground-dwelling insects upon which they prey. So I suppose that the water-soaked soil, due to recent heavy rains, attracted dragonflies to our property.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed a $3,500 fine on a Virginia company for the temporary loss at the Fort George G. Meade Army Base of a device that contained a small amount of radioactive material. In late 2010, GeoConcepts Engineering, Inc., headquartered in Ashburn, Va., lost a portable nuclear gauge used to measure soil density at construction sites, the NRC said Tuesday in a statement. The company suspected that the gauge had been stolen during a theft of construction equipment on the base, where the item was stored on a temporary job site.

From the pages of The Aegis dated Thursday, July 6, 1961: The big news in Harford County 50 years ago this week was soil conservationists and county officials signing an agreement to allow two more dams to built along Little Deer Creek that, according to the story, "which will hold and release evenly flood waters feeding into Deer Creek. " Bel Air celebrated the Fourth of July a bit differently than it will this year. According to a front page picture, "Bel Air's celebration of July 4 was the raising of 'Old Glory' on the new flag pole on the courthouse lawn, after many months of discussion.

When Dave Whitman arrived at work at 5 a.m. Saturday, he knelt on the track at Pimlico Race Course and grasped a handful of soil. Glop, it was not. Despite a line of storms that drenched the area for much of the past week, the Preakness would be run on a fast track. Whitman, director of track maintenance, had fooled nature again. Not only did Pimlico weather that 11/2 inches of rainfall, the course actually had to be watered between each race Saturday. Trucks sprayed nearly 50,000 gallons of city water on the track to keep down the dust on a day when millions of race fans were watching.

I'm all for urban farms and victory plots ("Urban farms taking root," April 21), but is anyone checking the soil for lead and other contaminants? The comment about turning "trash-strewn lots into beds of nourishing produce" is quite scary. Many lots are dumping grounds for used oil, car batteries, and who-knows-what. The lead level in my backyard soil is nearly three times what is considered safe, and that's just from ambient lead pollution in Baltimore. As a result, all my vegetables need to be grown in pots.

With less than two weeks to go before Opening Day, the Orioles have already suffered the first loss of the season. The score: Mother Nature 1, the ivy at Camden Yards 0. The ivy that grows up the wall beyond centerfield at Oriole Park, and contributes to its widely imitated retro feel, was attacked by a soil-borne pathogen and had to be pulled out earlier this month, said Nicole Sherry, the head groundskeeper. "It broke my heart to tear it down," Sherry said Tuesday. "I know how much it means to the fans, and it was sad to see it go. " Sherry hopes to replant this spring or fall, but for now, the "batter's eye" — the wall behind the pitcher in the hitter's line of sight — will instead bear a fresh coat of the park's signature "Camden Green" paint.