Shoppers often assume farmers’ markets sell only the freshest crops from small, local operations, said Mickie Swisher, an associate professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. But with the number of U.S. farmers’ markets more than quadrupled since 1994, big-volume produce dealers sometimes use them to sell items shipped from other states or countries.

When that happens, customers may feel outraged or indifferent, depending on whether they’re committed to eating local or just want a pleasant excursion, said Swisher, one of the study’s authors.

Elizabetta Braithwaite and Michael Seegert share a Southgate home where fruit-bearing trees, vines and edible plants flourish throughout their garden. The local growers are among more than 100 members of the Sarasota Fruit and Nut Society.

Just a few yards away from a bustling, well-traveled Sarasota street, Michael Seegert and Elizabetta Braithwaite share a little peach house with a red steel roof nestled behind a thick, fragrant cover of edible and ornamental trees, plants, vines, shrubs, tinkling chimes, babbling fountains, angelic statues, birds, butterflies and critters.

Winding stone paths intersect banana and avocado trees, jasmine, lemongrass, berry patches, tomatoes, figs, hibiscus, grape vines, potted mangos, bamboo, bougainvillea and more — much more — so much that the couple is hard-pressed to tell exactly how many different things are germinating in various stages on their nearly quarter-acre patch of paradise.

“We don’t really know,” Braithwaite said, pointing to a green leafy tree with long seed pods hanging from its branches.

“Few people have this one,” she said about the tree, a native of India known as the “Miracle Tree” that the World Health Organization promotes as a nutrient-rich food. “We eat the leaves every day.”

Braithwaite bought the seeds from an online grower but several of their plants and trees also come from the local people they have met through the Sarasota Fruit and Nut Society, a group of more than 100 members who are gearing up for their annual Rare Fruit Tree Sale on Sunday.

David Johnson, of Johnson Honey Farms and Bee Removal Service, prepares to transfer honey combs from a bee hive established in a water meter box into a bee box at a home on Antigua Court on Marco Island on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012. PHOTO BY DAVID ALBERS, NAPLES DAILY NEWS

Beekeeper David Johnson’s bare hands worked slowly as he picked apart a honeycomb crawling with bees he had pulled out of a water meter box on Marco Island.

“Let’s see if they’ll be nice,” Johnson, 47, said as he crouched over the box buried in a front yard on Antigua Court. “Most of the time they’re nice.”

Bees — he calls them girls — crawled on his hands and up his arms, but Johnson stayed calm and focused as he shook the quietly buzzing bees into a wooden box and tied pieces of the honeycomb into frames inside the box. He planned to give the bees to a friend getting started in beekeeping.

Johnson came out of the job without a sting, but he and other beekeepers have felt bitten lately by the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

This summer, the agency’s Bureau of Entomology and Pest Control Chief Michael Page issued a new interpretation of Florida’s pest control law that meant bee removal now must be regulated as pest control.

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services held a workshop Thursday at its Winter Haven office on a new rule that would allow small farms to sell a limited amount of fresh eggs and dressed poultry directly to consumers.

Current law allows direct sale to consumers only if those items are labeled as “pet food” or the farm is also a licensed processor, said Lee Cornman, assistant director at the department’s Division of Food Safety. Direct farm sales for human consumption are otherwise illegal.

The new regulations will allow for direct egg sales from farms with up to 1,000 laying hens in any year, said John Fruin, chief of the Division of Food Safety.

The new rule also would allow for the slaughter and direct sale of no more than 20,000 poultry birds raised on that farm per year subject to U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations, they said.

A special recognition dinner was held for a group of formerly homeless people turned farmers at Verde Gardens in Homestead. (Source: CBS4)

Tough economic times have left many families without homes and jobs but a sweet recipe for turning lives around is being served up in one of the best restaurants in town. At its heart, an organic farm with a first of its kind harvest in America.

As sun kissed rays dance amid the vines and the summer heat bakes the brow of farmers, the air is sweet with the scent of blossoms, basil and hope on a Homestead farm that’s changing lives.

Here to purchase and pick fruits and vegetables this day, one of the worlds most celebrated chefs, Norman Van Aken.

“This is one of the best chapters in Miami’s history of food. And imagine, you can feed your family, a child a neighbor,” said Van Aken.

Sarasotans are now living in another unlikely chicken sandwich – a curious situation wherein chickens are allowed in both our most rural areas and the most urban area, but sandwiched in between is a no-hens land consisting of the suburban unincorporated county.

Lee, 35, owns The Manic Organic, a mobile organic produce stand. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will celebrate the grand opening of her new business at 4 p.m. Sept. 14 at the North Port Area Chamber of Commerce.

Originally from Miami and a North Port resident for seven years now, Lee said her focus will be on providing locally grown organic produce — along with organically produced soaps, candles, lip balms, T-shirts and reusable lunch bags — to the community. She also intends to promote sustainable living through the quality of her products and educational efforts, such as workshops on eating healthy and vegetarian cooking classes. She will operate out of a reconverted solar-powered school bus, which she will drive from location to location and invite customers inside the bus to shop.

PHOTO BY CHAD SPENCER

At their 1¼-acre south Sarasota property, Javier and Mary Allen Arana nurture 75 fruit trees, harvest berries, and make organic compost.

Their bounty enriches the menu at Javier’s Restaurant and Wine Bar on Siesta Key, where local, organic ingredients are integral to the Peruvian-American fare.

“We’ve always been environmentalists. And I’ve always been into the earth, from the time I was a kid growing avocado pits in my window in Wisconsin,” says Mary, who has been in business with her husband for 25 years. “We’re subtly trying to promote that you can eat and live well without destroying the world with chemicals, through our own lifestyles and through our menu.”

Javier, who grew up in Lima, Peru, creates and tests recipes daily, about 90 percent of which are suitable for people with food allergies. All unusable scraps are gathered nightly and transferred to the home compost heap.

The Aranas purchase fair trade coffee and chocolate from Equal Exchange, bakery items from Sarasota’s Bavarian Bread, corvina from Peru, and wild salmon from Scotland. Other fish comes from area vendors like Maggie’s Seafood and Sammy’s Seafood, and much of the produce is from Global Organics.

There are four types of peanuts — Virginia, runner, Spanish and Valencia — but the type most common in Florida is the runner. Photo by Katy Kuehner/Tampa Tribune

When you think of peanut growth, what states come to mind? Georgia? Alabama? North Carolina?

Add Florida to your mental list, as the state is now second in line for U.S. peanut production growth, right behind Georgia and ahead of Alabama, according to Ken Barton, president of the Marianna-based Florida Peanut Producers Association.

Georgia, Florida and Alabama grow 80 percent of all peanuts in the United States.

“For many years, Florida was the fourth-largest,” Barton said. However, acreage reduction in other states and acreage increases in the Sunshine State changed that. He expects the state will continue to occupy the second position this year.

You may wonder why you don’t hear more about peanut growth in Central Florida. Although peanuts have been grown as far south as Lake Okeechobee, they do better in well-drained sandy soil found in the state’s Panhandle, northern parts, and through just south of Ocala, Barton said.

Annie Farrell 13, shows a scallop she caught in Crystal Bay with Captain Rick LeFiles’ boat in the background. PATRICK FARRELL / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

For city folks, Miamians have it pretty easy if they want to experience the thrill of hunting and gathering.

We have pick-em fields of strawberries in the Redland or tomatoes in Homestead. There’s mahi mahi just offshore, and snapper and snook in our mangroves. There are spiny lobsters, now in season, hiding among the rocks of Biscayne Bay.

But there is a marine delicacy just out of our reach that is worth a road trip, and we have one month left to reap its harvest: bay scallops.

To get to those fan-shaped shells hiding their mild, sweet meat inside, cross over to the west coast of Florida and head north. You don’t have to drive all the way to Steinhatchee, the remote, panhandle-meets-peninsula village synonymous with scalloping. There’s a closer, lesser-known option just north of Tampa. The coastal communities of Crystal River and Homosassa are better known as winter havens for manatees, but they’re enjoying a bountiful scallop season this summer — and they’re only a five-hour drive from Miami.