Does anyone know of any organic orange groves in Florida. I want to be able to purchase citrus straight from the grove and not through a middleman. We will be in the southeast part of Florida next week. Any help would be appreciated. I've checked the internet and found several groves but no organic ones. Help!

-- mary in S.C. Mo. (rosewd@fidnet.com), December 04, 2001

Answers

Being a native Floridan, I know of no grove that practices organic production. In that the freeze of 1988 took most of the trees in central, the only major production is now further south, Lake Ockhocobbee (sp) and lower areas. And as for Southeast Florida, brush up on your Spanish and Arabic and Farscee and Polish and Bolivian and well you get the picture, I moved to W. Va. just to get back to America!

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), December 04, 2001.

Maybe all the organic groves are in California?

-- Bren (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), December 04, 2001.

I used to grow citrus organically here in Central Florida, but, as with most things agricultural, the State of Florida made it so much of a hassle and so expensive to grow organically that I got out of the business. This applies not only to citrus, but all crops. Welcome to Big Brother Land.

-- John James (jjames@n-jcenter.com), December 05, 2001.