{"id":423171,"date":"2026-10-09T11:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/423171\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T11:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T11:08:10","slug":"backyard-farming-movement-takes-root-in-central-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/423171\/","title":{"rendered":"Backyard farming movement takes root in Central Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 Every day, the U.S. loses about 2,000 acres<\/a> of farm and ranchland, mostly due to encroaching urban development. <\/p>\n

But a growing trend has homeowners taking back some of that land through something called micro-farming. <\/p>\n

Just after 6 a.m. in Pine Hills, Sharea Harris is already on her hands and knees, pulling radishes from the soil. Her 5-year-old daughter, Jane, isn\u2019t far behind. What started as a pandemic project has grown into something much bigger a small but thriving urban farm, a budding children\u2019s education program and a glimpse into a broader movement quietly spreading across Central Florida backyards.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sharea Harris and her daughter pick vegetables in her backyard micro-farm. (WKMG-TV)<\/p>\n

\u201cI just love that,\u201d Harris said, describing the joy she finds in watching her daughter engage with the garden. \u201cJust that spark that we all once had as kids, that everything was exciting and new and fun and adventurous \u2014 I feel the same way when I\u2019m out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris began gardening in 2020, when she and her family moved to their Pine Hills home. With two young kids and a pandemic-era mandate to stay home, she decided to put her backyard to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started really small with one of those garden beds over there, and it\u2019s just grown over time,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

What began with a single bed of collard greens, purchased from a big-box store, quickly evolved after Harris discovered the starts she was buying weren\u2019t thriving.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go to Home Depot, Lowe\u2019s, Walmart, all those other box stores, and I\u2019m like, spend tons of money on buying these starts. And they weren\u2019t doing that great,\u201d she said. \u201cFarmers don\u2019t go to the big box stores and buy their starts. They grow from seed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That realization launched a deep dive into seed varieties, grow zones and climate-appropriate planting. Knowledge she said changed everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll seeds aren\u2019t for all areas,\u201d Harris explained.<\/p>\n

Harris isn\u2019t alone. Experts at the University of Florida say the trend she\u2019s a part of has been quietly building for years and has accelerated significantly since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are absolutely seeing a trend in urban agriculture, from backyards to commercial operations in the Central Florida area,\u201d said Hannah Eason, regional specialized agent of commercial horticulture for UF\/IFAS Extension. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been happening really since the emergence of a slow food movement well over a decade ago. But then the pandemic back in 2020 really spurred a renewed interest and even a necessity to supplement our local food supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Much of Sharea Harris’s backyard is devoted to gardening. (WKMG-TV)<\/p>\n

Eason said the movement has expanded beyond individual backyards, with local organizations like Fleet Farming helping push edible gardens into front yards \u2014 particularly in the Audubon Park community. <\/p>\n

\u201cFolks do want to know where their food is coming from,\u201d Eason said, \u201cwhether they\u2019re growing it themselves, or whether they know the farmer and trust the farmer\u2019s values and practices. And having the harvest a little closer to home does result in peak freshness, peak flavor and usually capturing peak nutrition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris has taken her education seriously. She apprentices roughly two days a week at Ever Oak Farm, an organic operation off East Colonial Drive in Orlando.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how I was able to expand to this size in such a short amount of time,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re just learning how to naturally feed plants, just like grass. Dying grass feeds the soil instead of going and buying all these fertilizers and things that we don\u2019t need, because the world\u2019s been feeding itself and growing itself well before we got here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eason echoed that philosophy from a scientific standpoint. She described organic gardening as a process that taps into the biological cycles of the garden \u2014 using compost with microbes to nurture the soil, and leaning on natural-origin inputs rather than synthetic ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re really sticking to the more natural origin types of products that are usually more circular and working with the ecology of their backyard instead of working with more synthetic inputs,\u201d Eason said.<\/p>\n

For Central Floridians curious about starting their own garden, Eason says the timing couldn\u2019t be better. Fall, she said, is actually the ideal season to begin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis fall season is the best time to start your vegetable garden here in Central Florida,\u201d Eason said. \u201cAs things start to cool down just a touch, that\u2019s when it\u2019s a good time to go ahead and get those tomatoes, some carrots, start your leafy greens and lettuces.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that new gardeners should consider their available time, space and resources before choosing what to grow.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some folks, they might be limited to a balcony and there are great options working with hydroponics and buckets,\u201d she said. \u201cOthers have an entire backyard or front yard \u2014 that opens up a lot more different options.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris has a similar piece of advice: start small and start with herbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cStart with an herb, something that you can cut and come again,\u201d she said. \u201cYou just keep cutting from it and it just keeps growing. I would not start with tomatoes, because it\u2019s not very easy to grow,\u201d she said with a laugh that expressed her experience.<\/p>\n

Harris recently turned her passion into something official. She Grows Collective became a registered business. The nursery sells plant starts, with proceeds going toward a children\u2019s education program called Little Sprouts \u2014 a hands-on grow program for kids ages 3 to about 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost kids have no idea where their food comes from other than the grocery store, which is common,\u201d Harris said. \u201cBut when you teach them the right way and where things come from and they can do it themselves, they are more eager.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris said she currently teaches family and friends \u2014 many from her former homeschool community \u2014 and hopes to open classes to the broader public within the coming months, with groups of five to seven children at a time.<\/p>\n

Her five-year goal is bigger still.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive-year goal is obviously acquire more land so that we can take this on a larger scale \u2014 so we can actually have like a gardening school, so it can be like obviously separate from the house,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll have our house garden and then we\u2019ll have a learning farm where families can come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Harris and Eason point to something beyond produce that draws people to urban farming: the mental and emotional benefits of working the land.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s actual science-based stress reduction benefits and cortisol reductions from folks actually working in the garden,\u201d Eason said. \u201cSo in addition to harvesting a real yield that you can turn into a tasty meal, there\u2019s actual stress reduction benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Studies suggest gardeners consume up to 10 to 20 percent more fresh produce than non-gardeners, according to Eason. <\/p>\n

For Harris, it\u2019s also changed how she thinks about food.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt encourages us to expand and try new things,\u201d she said. \u201cEverything that we eat in the grocery store isn\u2019t relative to the season that we are currently in. It\u2019s teaching us to eat the seasons more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eason said UF\/IFAS Extension has taken notice, adding new faculty focused on urban and alternative agriculture research. She noted that produce consumed locally avoids the long-haul food supply chain \u2014 with some food traveling well over 1,000 miles to reach Florida shelves. <\/p>\n

She also pointed to the rise of \u201cagrihoods\u201d, new residential developments designed with agriculture built in, as a sign the trend has moved beyond novelty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that helps us see that the trend is really more than just a trend and something that\u2019s here to stay,\u201d Eason said.<\/p>\n

For Harris, the movement starts neighbor by neighbor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf every other person in the neighborhood was growing something, more like a monoculture, one person grew tomatoes, one person grew bell peppers \u2014 we could come together as a community and essentially a farmers market within our own neighborhood,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have the space, and why not make it beautiful and edible?\u201d<\/p>\n

Resources for aspiring gardeners can be found through local UF\/IFAS Extension offices, including the Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide online. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 Every day, the U.S. loses about 2,000 acres of farm and ranchland, mostly due…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1563,28,575,1335,139,141,140,4777],"class_list":["post-423171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-environment","tag-florida","tag-food","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-pine-hills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}