PORT ST. LUCIE — Ripe strawberries are dangling in the yard at the lone house on Westcliffe Lane. Tomatoes, onions and corn are sprouting, too.

The porch of the Home & Garden Television's Green Home in Tradition.

No green thumb is necessary: A solar-powered pump shuttles water from two nearby rain barrels to the hydroponic garden. To find out if the rain will fill the barrels today, step inside the house, where a flat-screen monitor greets you with the forecast.

No showers predicted? That’s OK. Sunshine powers rooftop solar panels. The monitor shows how much energy they’re generating, too.

“It doesn’t provide all the electricity, but it sure helps,” the home’s architect, Michael Carlson, said of the 2-kilowatt system.

This is Home & Garden Television’s Green Home, the network’s second ever and first in Florida. It’s a $750,000 collection of eco-friendly must-haves and green novelties that HGTV will give away in a drawing in June. (more…)

Robert Murray

Then Det. Carlo Sciandra found it: a handgun and three loaded magazines resting on top of the valve flap.

That’s what Sciandra explained in the report detaling Murray’s arrest on Tuesday.

The week before, deputies responded to the 3700 block of Adriatic Lane in Jensen Beach, where a man reported more than $10,000 in jewelry and a semi-automated handgun stolen from his home.

The man told deputies that Robert J. Murray Jr. was at the home before the burglary alarm went off and the items were discovered missing at about 12:30 p.m. on Dec. 18, according to a sheriff’s report.

Deputies later learned that Murray was staying at a Holiday Inn, where they headed for an interview.

During the questioning, an investigator asked to use the restroom, the report states. But when Sciandra couldn’t flush the toilet, he lifted the tank cover to see if he could fix the problem.

Then he found the stolen handgun, he said.

Murray later admitted to stealing from the Jensen Beach man, deputies said. He is being held at the Martin County jail on $25,000 bail and faces felony charges of grand theft and theft of a firearm.

Alfred Crosby

Shortly before 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, police were summoned to Lake Street where an argument had erupted inside a residence.

Upon arrival, Stuart police Officer John Martin caught a resident of the home attempting to flush drugs down the toilet, according to a police news release.

Contraband was seized after a scuffle with the suspect, according to police spokesman Sgt. Marty Jacobson.

Police arrested Alfred Crosby, 47. He faces charges of possessing drugs with intent to sell within 1,000 feet of a church, tampering with evidence and resisting arrest without violence.

He is being held in the Martin County jail. His bond was set at $53,000.00.