It’s a glorious spring weekend and you’re off to the farmers market to stock up on a week’s worth of fresh veggies and fruit. Or you’re stopping by the neighborhood produce stand to grab some tomatoes for your dinner salad.

As you select from displays of perfectly ripe vegetables and plump fruit, you naturally assume they were all grown nearby. After all, you live in Florida, a state that accounts for nearly half the total citrus production in the entire country and annually produces over 1.5 billion pounds of tomatoes alone.

The truth is, some of the items you’re taking home were probably grown locally, but others could just as easily have been grown in another state—or even Mexico. For example, if you’re buying blueberries in January or spinach in September, odds are extremely high they weren’t grown in Florida. Another good example is cold-weather crops like broccoli and cauliflower, which have a limited growing season in Florida.

That’s not to say what you’re buying won’t taste good, but if you’re serious about eating healthier and buying fresh and local, it’s time to learn about seasonal availability.

One way to verify that what you’re buying is indeed grown in the Sunshine State is to look for a label.

“To ensure produce is fresh and Florida-grown, consumers should look for the “Fresh From Florida” label on fruits and vegetables,” says S. Kinley Tuten of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. “Our ‘Fresh From Florida’ program connects retailers in more than 26 countries with producers throughout Florida.”

Your local small farmer may or may not sell produce with a “Fresh From Florida” label, but it’s totally appropriate to ask where it was grown.

 Getting Savvy About Seasons

It all starts with understanding that you can’t always get everything you want if your goal is to buy strictly locally grown.

“The struggle with consumerism is that local produce is sized up against that of the big box grocery stores, which doesn’t teach people the concept of seasonality,” notes Laura McCormick, who owns Florida Local Exchange, an Ocala-based business that hosts farm-to-table events and offers consulting services.

She says it comes down to knowing your producer/farmer and where your food is coming from.

“People don’t ask enough questions. When you go to a farmers market and see a table full of produce, ask the seller what they grew,” Laura suggests. “Most farmers are very honest and willing to educate consumers. You can also ask to visit their farm. Ninety-nine percent of the time, farmers who grow their own are thrilled to show people their farm. If you ask a producer if you can come out and they say ‘no,’ there’s a very good chance they’re not growing what they’re selling.”

Of course, there’s no crime in selling fresh produce you didn’t grow yourself. Most farmers will gladly tell you which items they grew and which they bought from the market in Tampa or Georgia.

“Tampa has one of the largest produce and fruit markets, and the items can come from anywhere,” says Laura. “Savvy people can still find local products from that big market, but you have to know who to talk to.”

So, if the farmer tells you he grew the bulk of the items, but got the radishes, carrots and avocadoes at the market, you can at least make an informed decision about buying.

As Laura points out, buying at a farmers market or produce stand allows you to support local farmers as opposed to corporate commercial producers, even if those local farmers didn’t grow everything themselves.

One powerful reason to support local growers is that, in doing so, you’re helping support sustainable farming practices, and what’s good for the earth is good for all of us.

There’s a big difference between food that is commercially raised and grown, and food that is produced by small farming programs.

“Commercially grown produce, even if it’s local, is probably still subject to commercial programs, which includes spraying the fields and growing the same crops in the same ground over and over, a process known as monoculture, which depletes the nutrients in the soil and causes resistance to bugs and pests that are harmful to crop production,” she notes.

“Monoculture in food production is just growing one same variety or raising a singular breed instead of many heritage crops and breeds,” explains Laura. “Bananas and commercially raised pork and chicken are good examples of that. If you go to the store, you’ll notice there are many types of apples to choose from but only one Chiquita Banana.”

Small farmers often use local seed banks where they can buy heirloom seeds. This not only preserves heritage and tradition, but it makes the food supply more hardy and less susceptible to crop disease.

Showing Soil Some Love

Another reason to support your local small farmer is that he or she uses sustainable farming practices, such as rotating crops, resting fields for a period of time and planting “cover crops,” which are then tilled into the ground to enrich the soil and replenish it.

When Bob and Karen King established their Mt. Citra Farm in Citra, Florida, they knew what they were looking for. They came from farming communities in Illinois and also had an organic grocery store there before moving to Marion County and buying their 6-acre farm in 2014.

“Having lived the lifestyle of eating organic produce, it was a natural progression to have our own farm and grow it,” says Karen.

The Kings intentionally bought land that sat higher than their neighbors’ in order to avoid any run-off from surrounding properties.

“When we see the freshly tilled ground, it always makes us realize just how lucky we are to have found this property among all of the sandy soil that so many other local growers have to work with,” says Karen. “In addition to rotating our livestock to fertilize the ground where we will be growing during the upcoming growing season and using composted chicken manure from our farm, along with composted mulch, we also use ‘green manure,’ which consists of composted leaves, weeds and vegetables from our land. We use cover crops that we plant and then till into the ground to break down and amend the soil before planting.”

The Kings use no herbicides or pesticides on their farm.

“This is our land, and our water comes from underneath it, so what you put on the land goes into your water,” says Karen. “That’s why we moved to the farm: to have clean water and clean food.”

In addition to growing produce with heirloom seeds, the Kings also raise heritage pork for the restaurant Nineteen61 in Lakeland and pasture-raised meat chickens. They grow about 100 to 125 chickens at a time and feed them U.S.-grown organic grains.

Karen says the ideal way to see for yourself that the produce you’re buying really was grown locally is to visit the farm in person. Customers come directly to Mt. Citra Farm to buy from the farm store, which is open two days a week, and by appointment, or they can order off the website and Karen delivers orders to downtown Ocala.

Keeping It Organic

Tom and Jill Jenkins didn’t have a lifelong dream of becoming organic farmers, but now that they are, there’s no doubt they’re doing exactly what they were meant to do.

Originally from upstate New York, the couple moved to the Florida Keys in 2004 and were living the saltwater life. Although they didn’t have health issues, they were inspired to start eating good food. Tom set up a hydroponic system since the coral rock of the Keys wasn’t useful for gardening.

“We grew for ourselves and shared with our friends,” recalls Jill. “When one of them said, ‘I haven’t had a tomato that tasted like this since I was a kid,’ that got us thinking. People don’t know what food is supposed to taste like, let alone the health benefits of it. That was a turning point. The food system in the United States is very broken, so we started thinking, ‘what can we do to fix it?’”

While visiting Jill’s aunt who lived in The Villages, they were introduced to the Summerfield area and were amazed that Florida could have seasons. Tom, an information technology specialist in his “past” life, wanted to be part of a small family farm helping feed their local community. He and Jill began looking for property and found a farm to lease and decided to go through the paperwork-intense process of becoming USDA Organic certified. And in 2013, Lonjevity Farms was born. (Why the “j”? “We’re Jenkins,” laughs Jill.)

On their 30 acres, Tom and Jill focus on growing a wide variety of organic vegetables, but they have recently expanded to include some meat animals (chickens, turkeys, pigs and grass-fed beef), all of which are fed organically.

“Tommy is the brain of the farm; I’m the social one and the face of the farm,” says Jill. “Hearing how food has changed people’s lives is what keeps us going every day. I talk to people and hear their stories and the struggles they’ve gone through with cancer and other illnesses, and their doctors recommend they eat organic food.”

The Jenkins are dedicated to producing healthy nutrient-dense food by combining modern technology with proven farming principles that were used before corporate industrial farming took over the production of America’s food.

Lonjevity Farms sells to area stores such as Fresh Market, Earth Fare, as well as supplying their produce to a number of restaurants. Their produce is also available at the farmers market on their own farm.

If you see Jill out delivering their produce, she’ll likely be wearing one of her T-shirts that proclaims, “Know your farmer, know your food.”

Tom’s favorite shirt asks a simple question: “Who’s your farmer?”

“People have their accountant and lawyer on speed dial, but they don’t know their farmer, and you rely on them to eat every day,” says Jill.