FGCU Food Forest

Took a walk through the FGCU Food Forest today, the "Food Forest" is a special student run botanical garden showing the sustainability of southwest florida with the majority of the plants and trees grown here being edible. Today it was pretty dry and most of the fruits have been harvested with the exception of a few papayas and bananas that were not quite ready. The bees and butterflies were very active with their jobs of tending to the garden and we were paid a special visit by the local supervisor who sat high in his perch overseeing everything from the garden to the surrounding nature trails.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, I had to cancel the walk through the nature trail due to flooding from all the rain this past week. Hoping to find time to do the walk within the next few days.

 

Erosion at work

Feeling inspired by the trip to ECHO, I decided I wanted to try my hand at growing avocados, I figured since avocado trees need to be elevated to prevent root rot here in Southwest Florida, I would create an elevated island for the trees and surround it with a pond in which I could raise tilapia. With trusty shovel in hand I began digging up my backyard. Of course, believing I am way smarter than I actually am ( I am a guy afterall), I realized that I would need to construct a retaining wall as I went so I set out to create a little island oasis in my backyard. The island itself went fairly well, I dug about 18" down and created a nice level area around which I set-up a retaining wall and then filled it all in so I could plant the trees.

Once the pond liner is in place I plan to add 4 more inches to the retaining wall and also raise the island and use plantation peanut as ground cover and for nitrogen fixation for the trees.

Feeling very pleased with this phase I begin digging out the pond...

making sure to build the retaining wall as I go! Everything is going well but as I am only one man, this project has taken several days and of course Mother Nature would not be denied her chance to assist me and sent a couple days worth of major rain and wind. My efforts to build a retaining wall as I went coupled with only having one side of the island dug out made for a very nice focusing of all the rainwater through my "trench".

You can see in this picture how the water was able to erode a nice shelf about 8 feet beyond where my planned pond would stop and create a nice hole about 18" deep that flowed through the tranch and washed everything into the canal behind my house. This will easily add an extra day or two to my project since now I will need remove all the deposits of the runoff and fill the hole in my yard. Maybe this was nature telling me that I needed a bigger pond for my tilapia? Either way, I got a first hand introduction to erosion in the form of a mudslide washing out a good portion of my backyard in just a few hours of rain. I just hope the next big storm can hold off long enough for me to finish the walls before it all washes away again.

A trip to ECHO Farm

Another hidden treasure here in SW Florida that I was fortunate enough to visit thanks to the Colloquium was ECHO Farms. Here, volunteers work to "solve the problems of world hunger" through sustainable, environment appropriate development and training. This is really an amazing operation where one can learn about how to work with a given environment to sustain both the ecosystem and the people. We went on an eco-tour where I learned alot about how people can interact with their environment to provide nourishment and sustainment for both. After leaving here, I decided to add a Moringa tree to my own garden at home for a nice nutrition packed leafy green addidtion to my familly's diet and also I am thinking about a Tilapia instead of the Koi pond I had been planning. This trip made me think about my current lifestyle and the stress it creates on our planet and I would like to become more self sufficient instead of supporting the destruction of our natural wealth by supporting businesses with unethical practices. It also got me thinking about ways I might help educate future generations to be more aware of how our actions affect the sustainability of the planet.

A walk through six-mile cypress slough

Wife and I decided to check out the Six-Mile Slough, the cypress swamp here is not quite as old as the one at the Corkscrew Sanctuary, but this little boardwalk is still well worth the trip. As we walked we were able to distinguish the call of the pileated woodpecker, after we located it, he decided to stick around and pose for a few pics :)

 

 

The resevoir area was also buzzing with more dragonflies than I have seen in a long time.

As we continued on our walk we came across a great set of tracks leading toward the swampy water...

 

leading to this guy, 

just a few feet away.

 

 

This was turning into a very exciting trip when we heard some grunting and rooting off in the distance and stumbled across this fellow and his sister digging up some breakfast...

Another exciting adventure in the wilds of Southwest Florida, here are a few more pics from our day, can you identify them?

 

A Trip to Corkscrew Sanctuary

So a couple weeks ago we took a trip to the Corkscrew Audobon Swamp Sanctuary. This is a true gem of a park here in Southwest Florida that actually features a living machine for water purification and three of Florida's ecosystems within a 2 mile elevated boardwalk that allows visitors to enjoy the park with minimal impact on it. There is a pine upland, prarie and an old growth cypress swamp. On this trip we were lucky enough to meet a barred owl up close and personal ( he was hanging out in a tree branch just a couple feet off the boardwal and about head high), these guys are usually pretty shy and primarily nocturnal, usually hanging out in a dark grove during the day. I think this one might have been making a special trip to observe the visitors, as he just sat on his branch as our entire group walked by. Also of note on this trip was a brief siting of a pileated woodpecker, we did not get the pleasure of seeing it up close but were able to glimpse him as he flew off to another part of the sanctuary. The swamp was pretty dry since it was near the end of dry season and the rainy season had not yet started but there were still a few american alligators hanging about in the handful of holes that still retained water. I hope to make another trip here in late July or August to contrast the difference between wet and dry seasons. All in all a great trip!