Midday

Because of the wild swings in winter weather and its duration, spring gardening presents plenty of challenges. Nancy Taylor Robson, a master gardener and Grow It, Eat It blogger, and Baltimore Sun columnist Susan Reimer offer tips for getting the best results. We'll also be joined by Donna Crivello of Donna's. 

This week on Midday Friday: Ingrid Lofgren from the Homeless Persons Representation Project discusses homelessness in Baltimore, we talk campaign finance with Jennifer Bevan-Dangel from Common Cause and Bruce Robinson from the state commission on campaign finance.

The white-collar New Deal capital and the blue-collar industrial port city are 40 miles apart but are rich with examples of the bold and distinctive art deco style in architecture and ornamentation.

Since its formation more than 4.5 billion years ago, Earth has gone through five waves of extinction, the latest being the extinction of the dinosaurs, which scientists believe was caused by an asteroid. In "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History," the New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert warns of what some scientists are defining as the "Sixth Extinction," which she says is happening now at the hands of mankind.

The Baltimore Sun's television critic David Zurawik makes his monthly visit to Midday. Among the stories we'll discuss this hour is  David Letterman's retirement from late night television, and Stephen Colbert's takeover of his show.

The local food movement has led to changes in the demographics of farmers in Maryland. Some 70 percent of today's beginning farmers did not grow up on a farm. We'll speak with two Maryland farmers whose desire to support the local food movement evolved into a career. And we'll hear from Greg Bowen, president of Maryland FarmLINK, which provides resources and support to farmers.

With production help from Midday Intern James Daley.

  In "Slavery's Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons," Sylviane A. Diouf chronicles the overlooked stories of the men, women and children who escaped from slavery to make the swamps and caves of the Southern wilderness their home. Diouf is a curator at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library.

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the first-ever game played by the Orioles in Baltimore. On that day, the team drew a capacity crowd of 46,354 to brand-new Memorial Stadium. As we mark 60 years of Major League Baseball in Baltimore, our guest is Bill Madden, veteran sportswriter for the New York Daily News and author of "1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball."

John "Mad4Science" Monahan is back for another hour on science news, including the latest report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the buzz surrounding the new FOX and National Geographic television documentary series "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey," hosted by renown astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Guest host Nikki Gamer

Richard Louv, founder of the Children & Nature Network, made an international call-to-action with his writing on reconnecting kids to nature. He also introduced the term "nature deficit-disorder" to describe problems that result from spending so little time outdoors. In "The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature Deficit Disorder," Louv focuses on re-connecting adults to the natural world in the digital age. Original air date 03/18/14