Last weekend we went to Weedon Island. It has approximately 3,700 acres of mangroves and uplands along the Bay, with several trails and boardwalks running through it. The mosquito ditching done in the 1950’s is clearly visible from Google satellite:

The ditches seem rather controversial in the northeast, particularly around Rhode Island, but comments from west central Florida sound more positive. While obviously ditching intentionally affects habitat, it seems Floridians don’t mind the resulting mangroves for the most part. My hatred for mosquitoes overrides my usual preserve the environment philosophy, and I’m all for destroying every last one if we could do that selectively. I find it terribly unfortunate that mosquitoes have ended up much more difficult to erradicate than the inoffensive passenger pigeon. Mosquito fish can find something else to eat. Instead of pesticides, we can spray fish food if needed. I’m only half kidding. Or, I could continue to only go outside in the beating heat of the most intense sun of the day for my mosquito repellent. Otherwise I’m left to drenching myself in lemon-eucalyptus oil.

It looks like the park may actually be more accessible via canoe trails than foot paths. You’d get more shade that way too. However, from a canoe you don’t get to look straight down into the water to see the fishies.

There are lots of crabs. Most of them small, though we saw a larger blue one from the same platform that we watched the catfish from. These were taunting the small fish frantically guarding its fish bed (lower left):

Here’s a closeup of how the mangroves handle the salt water — they sweat it out on their leaves:

Mangroves not close up, from the fish/crab viewing platform:

Our very first tomato, on the bush goliath, is starting to turn. It’s been 5 and a half-ish weeks since the fruit first formed.

We pulled up most of the sad tomatoes and the watermelons, which were showing absolutely no signs of new growth. The yellow summer squash, after each deciding to send out a single, pointless flower, have now, happily, turned to sending out new leaves, which are all still small but a much healthier shade of green, and more encouraging than most anything else that we’ve started from seed. I’m hypothesizing that the larger pots, put in more shaded areas, don’t get as hot as the first pots that we transplanted to.

Our second round of seedlings, which we’ve been keeping inside longer in at attempt to protect them from the mean outside world, have what are probably fungus gnats. I’m balking at paying ~ $12 (half of that is shipping) for a half dozen pieces of sticky yellow paper to catch them, but if the local garden center doesn’t carry it, I guess that’s what we’ll be doing. Making sure the soil dries out between watering is supposed to ensure the larva can’t survive, as well.

We bought a brown turkey fig at the farmer’s market this weekend. It has some leaf rust, which looks like is controlled with copper spray. From the pictures I’ve seen, they can bear fruit while still reasonably small.