A leading light of contemporary English folk music, composer, singer, fiddler and oboist, Paul Sartin passed away unexpectedly last week in Oxford, just before taking stage. Although he rarely performed under his own name, Sartin was a founding member of the bands Belshazzar's Feast, Faustus, and Bellowhead. He collaborated widely and was beloved throuhout the British folk community, none more so than in Hampshire, where he co-founded the Whitchurch Folk Club.

Today: Fertilizer questions, aphids and pesticides on milkweed, and much more.

In a remote Chilean desert, the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization is building a huge telescope that promises to see deeper into space than any optical telescope now existing. The work involves five countries and more than a dozen leading universities and institutes — and the president of the nonprofit that’s building it, Robert Shelton, lives in Davis. He joins us today on Davisville to talk about this huge new eye on the distant reaches of space and what it might show us, like whether we’re alone in the universe.

(The rendering depicts the Giant Magellan Telescope, now being built in Chile.)

On today's show we talk about heat injury to plants, some flowers to naturalize in the shade, planting onions in our area, and much more.