Lily Kesselman’s yard in the South Bronx is a definite eye-catcher. “People are really attracted to our yard,” she said. “We have fruit trees, we have food. Looking out, our yard is a nice little bright light out there.”

Two years ago, Ms. Kesselman’s husband, Donald Dunn, drove to a Connecticut farm to retrieve four pullets. In anticipation of their arrival, he had built a small cedar-shingle coop in their 672-square-foot backyard.

“It was so much fun,” said Mr. Dunn, a lawyer. “It was such a relaxing change of pace.”

When Mr. Dunn, 40, moved six years ago with Ms. Kesselman into the three-story brick-front rowhouse on a gritty street in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, the backyard was mostly paved with concrete. But Mr. Dunn, who as a child toiled in his mother’s garden in Youngstown, Ohio, wanted a plot of his own. He rented a jackhammer and spent two days uprooting concrete. While neighboring lots remain paved, the couple’s has apple trees, a vegetable garden, compost bins and the chicken coop.

“We weren’t thinking about property values,” said Ms. Kesselman, 42. “We were thinking about food.”

For Ms. Kesselman, a photographer, gardening is an extension of the community work she does in Mott Haven, a neighborhood with scant open space. Four years ago, Ms. Kesselman convinced her community garden to raise chickens. With a grant from Just Food, a nonprofit group that supports urban agriculture, the garden now has a coop with a dozen hens, cared for by 14 volunteers who receive eggs in exchange for their work. Ms. Kesselman also teaches classes on raising chickens and is a founder of the South Bronx Farmers Market.

There is no data tracking how many New Yorkers are tilling the earth — but it’s clear which way the wind is blowing. Last year, 5,000 New Yorkers attended educational workshops led by the New York City Compost Project, a program created in 1993. More than 250 honeybee hives are registered with the city, but beekeepers like Andrew Coté, the founder of the New York City Beekeepers Association, suspect the real number is higher. His association has 480 members, up from 25 in 2007.

The city does not track how many New Yorkers keep hens (roosters are illegal), but those numbers may be growing, too. Just Food has 765 members in its City Chicken Meetup group for enthusiasts. In 2012, the meetup had 400 members.

“My wife’s aunt was keeping chickens in Canarsie 40 years ago, and there have been beekeepers in the city on and off forever,” said Lenny Librizzi, the assistant director of the open space greening program for GrowNYC, a nonprofit organization, as well as a keeper of chickens and a grower of vegetables and mushrooms. “But there has definitely been an increase. I went to the feed store and they were out of organic feed for the week. The owner says, ‘I used to buy 10 bags at a time, and now I buy 100 at a time.’ ”