Mangrove Market

Every Saturday from October to May the park beside the Palm City bridge fills with white tents by seven, and by eight the Mangrove Market is open: forty stalls of winter vegetables from the farms west of town, citrus in season, bread from two bakeries, local honey, smoked fish from a man who smokes it on the spot, plants, eggs, flowers and a coffee cart with a queue. A band plays under the oaks from ten and the river is right there for the children to throw bread at the fish.

It is a real market in the sense that matters: the people selling grew it or made it, prices are fair and the best things are gone by eleven. Bring a bag, bring cash for the stalls that do not take cards, and bring a cooler if you are buying fish.

Summer closes it; the heat and the storms make a morning market impossible from June to September, and the stalls come back with the cool weather in October. The honey stall at the river end sells the mangrove honey that gives the market its name, and it is gone by ten.

Good to know

• October to May only; it closes for the summer.
• The smoked fish and the good bread are gone by eleven.
• Cash for some stalls, cards at most; the coffee cart takes both.
• The park has restrooms and shade under the oaks.
• Parking is in the park lot and along the road; arrive before nine.