During Florida’s growing season, Margie Pikarsky spends Saturdays harvesting crops like heirloom tomatoes, green beans, arugula and Cleopatra tangerines on her Bee Heaven Farm in Redland. She’s among a small group of South Florida farmers whose produce is in demand to help nourish a growing desire for fresh products coming off local farms instead of the grocery store shelf.

Pikarsky’s produce is found Sunday mornings at Pinecrest Gardens Green Market, where she and other farmers calling themselves Redland Organics are among the 50 vendors there.

“We’ve been doing this before ‘local’ became a buzzword,” Pikarsky says. “Every year there’s more demand.”

About 30 markets now operate in South Florida and more are in the planning stages.

“This is the prime time of year for local growers,” says Claire Tomlin, owner of The Market Company in Miami-Dade County. “Produce is abundant, people like to be outdoors at farmers’ markets and goods are just flying out the door.”

Tomlin manages more than a dozen weekly markets that range from the smallest eight-vendor stop at St. Johns on the Lake United Methodist Church in Miami Beach to Pinecrest Gardens, the largest.

Michael Lopez-Mata says he’s a regular customer at the Lincoln Road Farmers’ Market because he enjoys the short walk from his apartment to the market rather than driving his car to the grocery store. “All the food is healthier, tastier and makes me feel better, too,” he says.

Green markets today are as varied as the array of colorful fruits and vegetables sold in rustic stands from Parkland to Homestead.

Some markets are only open one day a week in town centers, malls and parks throughout Broward and Miami-Dade counties, while a handful, like the landmark Robert Is Here Fruit Stand and Farm in Homestead, operate out of permanent homes six to seven days a week.

While farming has been a way of life for the stand’s Robert Moehling, Marando Farms in commercial downtown Fort Lauderdale was initially started as a way to make a living after being caught in the economic crunch.

Owners Fred and Chelsea Marando were laid off from jobs in construction when they decided to grow their own food on land they first rented to launch a landscaping business.

“Now we’re harvesting tomatoes . . . lettuce, beets, kale and cucumbers,” says Chelsea Marando. The couple gets 90 percent of the produce they do not grow themselves from Florida farms. A loyal and growing customer base is keeping the couple financially afloat.

In recent years, urban markets have made locally grown food more available to needy residents in Miami-Dade County.

Roots of the City Farmers Market in Overtown, which was founded by Marvin Dunn and operates in partnership with The Wholesome Wave Foundation, Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink and Catalyst Miami, lets shoppers using the EBT (Electronic Balance Transfer cards)/ Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) dollars to buy up to $20 worth of fruits and vegetables for $10. All the produce sold is grown by residents and volunteers on several small urban farms that dot the Overtown neighborhood.

“We are truly changing the nature of local economies through farmers’ markets and local farmers being able to use unsold produce to make baked and canned goods to sell, thus reducing their financial risk,” says Sharon Yeago, technical Advisor to Miami-Dade Dept. of Health for the Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant program. The grant has helped establish a variety of farmers’ markets including the Brownsville Market in Miami and the North Miami Farmers’ Markets. “It’s exploded in the last three years.”