There are so many folks growing food in the city, in fact, that NOFFN is hard at work on a comprehensive guide to the city's food gardens, profiling more than 100 city growers. "The history of urban agriculture in New Orleans is very far-reaching," explains Ariel Wallick Dorfman, an urban agriculturalist at NOFFN. "But I would say the last five years is really when urban agriculture went beyond community gardens." Here are five examples of how New Orleans is taking city-grown food from farm stand to standing resource:

1. Hollygrove Market and Farm: Bringing the Next Generation of Urban Farmers to Market

Founded: 2008

Size: One acre

Managed by: Carrollton Hollygrove Community Development Corporation

Location: Carrollton / 8301 Olive Street

If there's one New Orleans farm that stands as a flagship for up-and-coming urban farmers, it would be Hollygrove Market and Farm. NOFFN first planted crops in the neighborhood in late August 2005—not long before Katrina made landfall. Two years ago, the local community development corporation laid claim to an acre of land off Carollton Avenue, a major thoroughfare. Half the land is dedicated to master gardener and community plots, with an outdoor oven and chicken coop along the periphery. In the center sits a shaded stage designed by local architecture students that does double duty as water catchment and presentation space, alongside a market structure where neighborhood residents can buy regionally and city-grown produce.

But the crown jewel may end up being what sits on the other half: two sprawling plots handed over to experienced urban farmers who will be teaching New Orleanians how to farm city soil as a business enterprise. Macon Fry, dubbed the "Greens Guy," already has a solid business in microgreens, while Ronald Terry, a retired social services worker, is cultivating muscadine grapes, blackberries, kumquats and satsumas to bring to market later this year.

Training classes have yet to start, though, so Fry keeps busy by working his land. A recent weekday morning had him on his hands and knees clearing out a row of arugula that had already been harvested. Business is so strong, he said, that he plows through three or four beds a week. "It's a really right rotation," he said, shaking the dirt from an arugula root. "I have to replant right away."

NEXT: Eating within a 10-block radius

2. Little Sparrow Farm: Eating Within a 10-Block Radius

Founded: 2008

Size: 30 by 100 feet (typical city lot)

Managed by: Marilyn Yank

Location: Midcity, South Cortez Street and Cleveland Avenue

Marilyn Yank wasn't looking to start an urban farm, but when the Ruby Slipper restaurant opened up shop in her Midcity neighborhood, the opportunity was too good to resist. The restaurant brokered an arrangement for Yank to begin farming a vacant lot across the street, and soon Yank was supplying the kitchen with what's become a common urban crop: microgreens. But the more Yank grew greens, the more she felt tugged in the opposite direction. "It felt like my household suffered," says Yank, who found herself growing more for market than her own kitchen. "I wanted to go back to diversity."