WHAT postdiluvian New York needs is more gardens — that and $10 billion worth of sea gates. Right?

As it happens, the city appears closer to realizing the former. Backing for new community food gardens comes from the one person who can seemingly create green space out of thin air. That would be Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose sustainability initiative, PlaNYC, calls for city agencies to identify vacant parcels that may be reclaimed for urban agriculture. Perhaps 100 potential sites should be evaluated by spring, said Edie Stone, who heads the vetting process as the director of GreenThumb, the community garden program at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

Food-garden proposals have also sprouted from the offices of City Council speaker Christine C. Quinn (FoodWorks) and Manhattan borough president Scott M. Stringer (FoodNYC). Closer to the grass roots (which is not a pun), the Brooklyn garden-advocacy group 596 Acres has created a Web database and a signposting program to bring empty city lots into tillage. With all the new stake-claimers, “We get probably three or four requests a week,” Ms. Stone said. “That’s probably the most it’s ever been.”

Ms. Stone, 46, expresses great gratitude for all the official backing. After all, she buried years of her life in the fight against the last mayor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and his late-’90s scheme to sell off the city’s gardens.

Yet it’s hard to imagine that Mr. Bloomberg and his colleagues will have the time this fall to drive an old Ford F-150 to Mott Haven with a load of mulch, and then stick around to prune the peach trees.