Very best lunar times for spring planting of all kinds

Mid April already, and the wild plums

bloom at the roadside, a lacy white

against the exuberant, jubilant green

of new grass and the dusty, fading black

of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet,

only the delicate, starpetaled

blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.

— Ted Kooser, “Mother” THE THIRD WEEK OF MIDDLE SPRING

Astronomical data and lore

The Hungry Moon continues to wane throughout the week, reaching apogee, its position farthest from Earth on April 20 and then becoming the Cows Switching Their Tails Moon at 9:26 p.m.on Earth Day, April 22.

Rising in the morning and setting in the evening, this crescent moon moves across the center of the sky near the middle of the day. Lunar position is most favorable for fishing between late morning and early afternoon, particularly as the cool front of April 21 pushes down the barometer as it approaches. And this week is one of the very very best lunar times for spring planting of all kinds.

The Big Dipper now tilts deep into the sky overhead after dark. Its pointers (the two outside stars of the dipper) are positioned almost exactly north-south before midnight, marking the center of middle Spring.

April 19 is Cross-Quarter Day (the halfway mark between equinox and solstice). The sun enters Taurus at the same time.

The Lyrid Meteors reach their best on April 21-22. Look in the southeast after midnight. The meteors will appear near the Summer Triangle.

Weather trends

After the high-pressure system that arrives near April 16 passes through, a major increase in the average daily amount of sunlight occurs: a rise from early April’s 50/50 chance of sun or clouds up to a brighter 70 percent chance of clear to partly cloudy conditions. Chances of highs in the 80s continue to climb across the nation’s center, reaching the same frequency as in mid-October by April 18.The steady advance of the year’s cold waves slows now, and relatively long periods of stable weather encourage the advent of full spring growth. However, the second major tornado period of April begins this week, lasting in most years until the 27th.

Countdown to spring

■ One week until the first rhubarb pie

■ Two weeks until the first cricket song of late Spring

■ Three weeks to the great warbler migration through the lower Midwest

■ Four weeks until the first roses and orange ditch lilies open and until all tender vegetables and flowers can be set out in the garden

■ Five weeks until the high canopy begins shades the garden

■ Six weeks until mulberries are sweet and cottonwood cotton drifts in the wind

Notes on the progress of the year

Cross-Quarter Day, the day on which the sun reaches halfway to solstice, occurs at the end of April’s third week. This is the time the first parsnips rise through the wetlands, and all major garden weeds are sprouting. Honeysuckles and spice bushes have developed enough to turn the undergrowth pale green, and color rises through the tree line as rose of Sharon, ginkgo, elm, tree of heaven, black walnut, pussy willow, box elder, sweet gum, ash, locust and mulberry foliage appears.

Early daffodils continue to hold, but the seasons of grape hyacinths and scillas are ending. Some of the earliest middle Spring wild flowers still bloom in a mild April: bloodroot, purple cress, twinleaf, toothwort, periwinkle and dead nettle.

The redbuds are open all along the 40th Parallel. More and more crab apples are flowering, and the great dandelion bloom of 2020 is at its peak, tulips pacing their yellow with red and orange.

In the field and garden

In the vegetable garden, you might find fresh asparagus, along with new herbs for seasoning and lettuce leaves long enough for salad. The first radishes could be ready, too.

Grub worms come to the surface of the lawn. Destroy tent caterpillars as they hatch in trees on your property

When the tree line starts to turn green, weevils appear in alfalfa, and cabbage worms take over the cabbage.

Journal

In early April mornings, Hercules has moved to near the center of the sky over Ophiuchus, Libra and Scorpio. The Summer Triangle, which includes Cygnus, Lyra and Aquila, is just a little behind him in the east. The Milky Way passes through the Triangle, blending it with autumn’s Pegasus rising. The Corona Borealis has shifted into the western heavens, and the pointers of the Big Dipper point almost exactly east-west.

Parallel to these and other celestial forms are constellations of objects close at hand: flowers and birds and amphibians and mammals. Throughout the many brief sub-seasons of the year, such creature reflects the tilt and the spin of Earth.

Earth star clusters of plants and animals, like asterisms made up of distant objects, are fabrications that create seasonal time.

And so after a walk in the woods, one might imagine a Spring Triangle formation made up of red toad trilliums and golden cowslip and bluebells.

Or maybe a Libra-like cluster with four corners: goldfinches in April plumage, bloodroot, morning robinsong and screeching, mating toads.

Or a lopsided, sixpointed, Cepheus-like collection of honking geese and watercress and the first pale spikes of lizard’s tail, the flushed, orange bellies of young river chubs, the fattening skunk cabbage leaves and the whistle of red-winged blackbirds.

Or a nine-piece Aquilalike fantasy of daffodils, tulips, serviceberry flowers, pear flowers, wind flowers, buttercups, creeping phlox and new wisteria.

Or a gangly Ophiuchuslike sprawl of morels and cardinals, trout lilies and redbuds, peaches and crab apples, hyacinths, violets and vast patches of dandelions.

In fact, the land of Middle Spring is an immediate firmament, and it is full of bright, soft, fragrant and vociferous constellations. Throughout its cosmic panoply lie signs from which to pluck a treasure of astrological fortune, riches from the neighborhood instead of from galaxies far away.

Bill Felker’s collection of essays,“Home is the Prime Meridian: Almanac Essays in Search of Time and Place and Spirit,”is available on Amazon. Or, for your autographed copy, send $17 to Poor Will, P.O.

Box 431, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387