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.

This is a bit late as I got sick and then started working on a new WordPress template to accommodate pictures larger than 400 px. These are shots of the flooded Santa Fe and Suwannee rivers right after cresting 2 weekends ago.

The flood water is still and not muddy, but is tinted rusty brown from decaying vegetation tannins. This is a flood prone area, with this flood reaching about once in a decade levels. Current river levels can be found here. Many of the houses are on stilts (this last picture was taken in December, whereas a few weeks ago this house was only accessible by boat):

These are two of our from-seed tomatoes (both planted at the same time). The one on the right is our sole moderately happy Quarter Century (and some rain ravaged volunteer mushrooms). I don’t remember what the other one is, but the rest all look the same. I think their color might have improved a bit since we improved their pots’ drainage, but none have decided to perk up and send out some actually healthy looking leaves.

Mike planted some new tomatoes and herbs. Perhaps too late to get established before the real heat sets in, but they give you an army of seeds in those packets from the hardware store, so we might as well try.

Today is cold (high of 65! ha!) and windy. The remaining two chives and parsley were getting blown around, so I’ve brought them inside. The changes in air pressure have been pushing the back door open a bit and creating a draft that I’m hoping my improvised cardboard pad in the deadbolt hole will eliminate.

On Sunday we bought 3 indoor plants and I put herbs in my strawberry pot. The top is a greek oregano, and the sides, which will be difficult to water, have parsley, thyme and two chives.

Most of the seedlings since repotting have been paling and anemic. We found that the saucers were keeping water from draining properly. We’ve now torn those off, and will see if things improve. The two tomatoes bought as plants, on the other hand, are twice as big as when we first got them. We have baby husky cherry reds now.

The two tomatoes that we bought as plants have been doing well. What we think is the Husky Cherry Red The Bush Goliath has continued to flower and has its first baby tomato.

At least one seed from each of the peat pellets has sprouted now, the peppers and especially the parsley taking the longest. Unless of course the “parsley” is actually a volunteer seed that happened by and took advantage of the frequent watering.

A few days ago something (we blame the squirrels until they can prove their innocence) knocked over some of the seedlings and was digging in the larger pots. Today I saw a (second?) snake in our yard. May it catch lots of squirrel.

It’s rained twice since we arrived in Tampa, with officially 0.06″ of rain thus far in March compared to an average to date of 2.61″. Average for the entire month of March: 3.36″. There are water restrictions in effect, but maybe it’s just the government offices that are expected to heed them, as I’ve seen plenty of fountains running and daytime watering.