City Farmers (7 to 12) team up in pairs to tend 4-by-15-foot plots; Earth Movers (13 to 17) develop group projects, like a wheel-shaped garden with paths as the "spokes."

Come spring, hanging geraniums cascade from boxes on the grayest high-rises, no Pole visits socially without taking along some flowers, and the nation's amateur gardeners busily tend tiny plots.

Children frolic on the lawn or tend little plots of garden while their mothers call down to them from the apartments above.

Farmers tended small plots in a bush-fallowing system and employed fire for clearance.

Monks tended physic plots for remedial herbs.

In more than 400 community gardens, residents are tending plots, growing fresh produce, sharing food with neighbors, and discussing and resolving neighborhood issues.

Palms grew in alcoves set in an inner wall, and exotic plants flourished in carefully tended plots.

And in remote areas, farmers tend immaculate plots, raising crops or livestock at prices far above the cost of imports.

Outside the rear door of the Just Desserts plant, paroled convicts tend tidy plots of berries, herbs and flowers, learning a skill and getting paid for their work.

"We work with third- and fourth-generation growers, who tend tiny plots of very old, low-yielding vines."