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How big is that spare bedroom? Just kidding. But even for people who live in urban areas (more than half our population), directly contributing to local food economies isn’t out of the question. Container gardening on porches, balconies, back steps, or even a sunny window can yield a surprising amount of sprouts, herbs, and even produce. Just a few tomato plants in big flowerpots can be surprisingly productive.

If you have any yard at all, part of it can become a garden. You can spade up the sunniest part of it for seasonal vegetables, or go for the more understated option of using perennial edibles in your landscaping. Fruit, nut, citrus, or berry plants come in many attractive forms, with appropriate choices for every region of the country.

If you’re not a landowner, you can still find in most urban areas some opportunity to garden. Many community-supported agriculture (CSA) operations allow or even require subscribers to participate on their farms; they might even offer a work-for-food arrangement. Most urban areas also host community gardens, using various organizational protocols—a widespread practice in European cities that has taken root here. Some rent garden spaces to the first comers; others provide free space for neighborhood residents. Some are organized and run by volunteers for some specific goal, such as supplying food to a local school, while others accommodate special needs of disabled participants or at-risk youth. Information and locations can be found at the American Community Garden Association site: www.communitygarden.org.

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STEVEN L. HOPP

So Lily wanted one rooster, for flock protection and the chance to watch her hens hatch chicks next year. The position was open for a good rooster, not a bad one. Over the years we’d had both. Our historic favorite was Mr. Doodle. If a professional circuit had been open to him, as dogs have their sheepherding trials and such, we could have retired Mr. Doodle for stud. He had a keen eye for hen safety and a heart for justice. I saved caterpillars I pulled off my garden so I could throw them into the chicken yard and watch Mr. Doodle run to snatch up each one, cock his head in judgment, and dole one out to each of six hens in turn before he started the next round. Any number of caterpillars not evenly divisible by six would set him into angst; he hated to play favorites.

But that was the ideal husband. The guys we had now were No-Second-Date. They’re still young, we allowed. Even a dreamboat has to start somewhere, getting chased into the boxwood a time or two before finding his inner gentleman. We’d be watching our boys closely now as they played a real game of Survivor. All but one would end up on our table, and we couldn’t get soft-hearted. Keeping multiple roosters is no kindness. They inevitably engage in a well-known sport that’s illegal in forty-eight states.

Who would get to stay? The criteria are strict and varied: good alarm calls, unselfish instincts for foraging and roosting, and a decent demeanor toward humans. Sometimes an otherwise fine rooster will start attacking kids, a capital crime in our barnyard. And finally, our winner would need a good singing voice. We’d be hearing his particular cock-a-doodle for more than a thousand mornings. Chanticleers, as the storybooks call them, are as diversely skilled as opera singers. We wanted a Pavarotti. Crowing skills are mostly genetic, arriving with developing male hormones. So far we’d heard nothing resembling a crow.

And then, one morning, we did. It was in July, soon after my summertime ritual of moving our bedroom outside onto the screened sleeping porch. The summer nights are balmy and marvelous, though it’s hard to sleep with so much going on after dark: crickets, katydids, and fireflies fill every visible and aural space. Screech owls send out their love calls. Deer sometimes startle us at close range with the strange nasal whiffle of their alarm call. And in the early hours of one morning, as I watched the forested