Turn an urban yard or balcony into your personal vegetable farm. Vegetable gardening is back Concern about the environment and the desire to eat food unpolluted by chemicals, to buy local and to be thrifty are some of the reasons. Urbanites who have never grown a thing are now eager to try to cultivate vegetables, herbs and fruit in back and front yards, on rooftops and on balconies -- in any suitable space they can find.