THIS IS THE STORY of two mortgage brokers. One gave me a half-percent less interest than I'd been paying on my home loan; the other gave me kohlrabi. But let me explain.

There I was again, staring out the window at the bald patch of land in my San Francisco backyard as if my disheartened

gaze would cause a blanket of flowers to bloom suddenly. Most of the 1,200 square feet looked good--the lavender and poppies were flourishing, the Meyer lemon tree was prolific, and our tomatoes were doing their best Jack and the Beanstalk imitation, climbing obediently up their cages. But to the left sat a sad tangle of mangled fescue and dirt, in dire need of attention.

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Well, a watched pot never boils, right? So I headed back to my computer to do the very antithesis of gardening: Check my email. And there, from my friend Adam, was a note about a new service called MyFarm, started by his friend Trevor Paque. Its mission is simple: to grow delicious vegetables locally, to connect people with their food, and to make food production secure and sustainable.

In short, Trevor and his crew would come to our house, install a garden (including a drip-irrigation system), plant heirloom vegetable seeds, and then come back once a week to maintain and harvest. We'd receive a weekly box of fresh (and extremely local) vegetables, and even grow enough for another household to purchase a box from Trevor as well. All this for a lot less than our family of three had been spending for produce at Whole Foods Market (an initial consultation is $50; our installation cost $750; and our weekly maintenance, which includes a harvest box, is $25). What better solution could there be for my sad patch of dirt?

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Growing one's own food is really an old-fashioned idea with modern appeal. During World War II, Victory Gardens provided up to 40 percent of produce for many American families, including my father's and mother-in-law's. Community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs--in which individuals invest in family farms and receive a regular produce delivery in return--have been gaining momentum, since their introduction in the mid-1980s, and urban versions of this concept (like Trevor's MyFarm) have been sprouting up in cities from Portland to New York. The confluence of factors such as higher food prices, environmental concerns, and nostalgia for a simpler, slower time seems to have created a tipping point for the edible landscape.

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At this point you're probably confused about the whole mortgage thing, right?

Well, 29-year-old Trevor--who recalls sleeping in his parents' garden when he was a kid and plucking tomatoes off the vine at dawn--nevertheless grew up to become a mortgage broker. It didn't take long for him to figure out that it wasn't the right fit. As for that first mortgage broker I mentioned? We signed our loan documents and never saw her again. That lack of connection with one's clients and colleagues was what helped Trevor decide that a career in loans just wasn't meant to be. After taking a class in permaculture, he realized, "I didn't want to sit behind this desk. I wanted to feel a lot closer to my life."

Upon hearing all this, my husband and I were sold on the idea (and my 2-year-old daughter was beyond smitten with Trevor and his mustard-colored overalls), so we scheduled an installation. At 7 on the appointed morning, a burly guy drove up and dumped a truckload of soil mix in our driveway--a unique way to start the day, I might add. Trevor and his girlfriend arrived soon after, energetically tackling our steep hill on their bicycles and hauling a small bike trailer with their gardening supplies. In keeping with the community spirit of this enterprise, our neighbor Pete lent us his wheelbarrow, and then our "farmers" were off and digging. Apart from the delivered soil and irrigation supplies, all the materials were reclaimed from our yard, including some extra wood from the fence we'd rebuilt last year.

By late afternoon, our 120-square-foot edible landscape had been installed. As the sun began to set, my family and I sat in the yard with Trevor, marveling over the paper packets of heirloom seeds he'd procured from the Seed Savers Exchange. Amazing things you rarely if ever see or taste anymore, like lazy housewife beans and bull's blood beets. He planted everything from the basic (summer squash and red leaf lettuce) to the exotic (long scarlet radishes and Japanese mustard greens).

After less than a year in business as a decentralized urban farm, the former mortgage broker has a waiting list in the hundreds. As for us? After just a few months, we're outside more, eating better, spending less--and getting a little dirt under our fingernails to boot.

INFO Visit myfarmsf.com for more about MyFarm. Similar services exist in Portland (yourbackyardfarmer.com) and Seattle (seattleurbanfarmco.com). To find a standard farm-based CSA near you, check out localharvest.org/csa

PHOTOGRAPHS BY EMILY NATHAN