Two years ago, a few of my idle graduate student friends decided that they wanted to try their hand at homegrown. (Not that kind of homegrown -- I mean homegrown vegetables.) But living in a urban apartment, their lives weren't exactly set up for farming. What yard they had access to had already been hostilely claimed by the little dog owners as a make-shift puppy toilet.

Not to be discouraged, my friends looked into getting a plot in the city garden. For a modest fee, they were able to rent a 50 square foot garden plot staked off and surrounded by other green-thumbed community members.

As it turns out, community gardens are growing in popularity all over the world. In the United Kingdom, for instance, garden allotments have become so coveted that there is often a 10 year waiting list for a spot. Many explain the rising popularity of community gardens as a response to increased concern with food safety and the uncertainty about the dangers of genetically modified foods.