A fledgling garden has sprung forth in recent weeks along Brighton Road in California-Kirkbride, a corridor on which anything remotely aesthetic turns heads.

On what used to be 8,000 square feet of battered cars on battered concrete, an expanse of shrubs, trees, flowers, brick walkways and a mulched area for a Monday marketplace is emerging as the initial site of the Allegheny Markethouse Cooperative.

Newly incorporated and using city-owned land through a garden waiver, the North Side cooperative is one of a small spate of urban farm projects occupying lots and wooded hillsides in city neighborhoods, including Lemington, Garfield and the Hill District.

In most cases, the lots have been city-owned and either sold at treasurer's sale or passed to groups for gardening use until the city asks for the property back.

Urban farming is increasingly touted as a tool for developing a neighborhood's economy, nurturing relationships, improving nutrition and minimizing transport, packaging and waste. Nationally, the most successful urban farms hire neighborhood residents, train youth and help residents spin off small businesses.

But the common theme in this nonprofit idea is that neighbors can afford -- and trust -- food grown by neighbors.

The North Side co-op ultimately wants to build a market house, and it has plans for an outdoor market. Right now, it's selling $100 lifetime memberships.

"We need 250 members to trigger a Co-op 500 grant for $25,000 to do more publicity," said Brad Spencer, who moved to the North Side with his wife, Elena Firsov, two years ago. They and Becky Coger, a resident of 35 years, are the co-op's trustees. "With 750 to 1,000 members, we can go to the bank" for a building loan, he said.

The co-op will bring farmers in to sell produce until its own land is ready to be planted. Besides the plot visible from the road, the cooperative has another nearby plot yet to prepare. A Monday market is planned, and a Saturday evening market, with movable street carts, will be established in the neighborhood, he said.

The co-op has enlisted Megan Cook, assistant director of the Farmers Market Alliance of Western Pennsylvania, to attract vendors.

Of the few city-based farms in full-scale operation, Mildred's Daughters in Stanton Heights is the oldest. It has been a working farm since the mid-1800s. The current owners grow enough for themselves and for sale on 1 acre.

"I do not consider us an entrepreneurial venture," said co-owner Barbara Kline, who works as a nurse. "We wanted to create a community up here. We feel like we're an educational venture. We're trying not to lose money and to live a sustainable lifestyle for ourselves."

In Garfield, Maria Graziani's Hillcrest Farm was seven vacant, delinquent lots on 1.7 acres before 2005. Today, she has Grow Pittsburgh as a fiscal sponsor, affiliations with youth groups, the Urban League School and the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, training commitments from Boston's esteemed Food Project and grants from the Grable Foundation, Weed and Seed and the Student Conservation Association.

Hillcrest's first public fund-raiser of the season was at 6 p.m. today at the Urban League Charter School, 327 N. Negley Ave., East Liberty. The event will feature early garden produce and a demonstration of how the farm will supplement school lunches with the salad produce it raises.

"We're in the process of hiring," said Ms. Graziani. "We hire 10 students a year and pay them to learn" and help with planting and harvesting.

All told, Hillcrest Farm's budget is less than $20,000, she said. The youth employees are paid $7.20 an hour as summer interns. They are all high school students in East End neighborhoods.

The Odessa Place Farm in Lemington is getting started with 100 kiddie wading pools as soil containers. Carole Walsh, a co-founder of the site and of the Urban Farming Initiative, said the group has gotten donations from seed companies and will grow plants from seeds in some pools and start worm habitats in others.

The Open Hand Ministry at the Union Project in East Liberty has joined as a partner, and the ministry also plans to farm lots in Garfield near Hillcrest Farm, said the Rev. John Creasy.

"Our goal is to bring healthy food to people who may not otherwise be able to afford produce, especially right now with prices as they are," he said. In addition, ministry volunteers are helping at the Odessa site.

On Beelen Street in West Oakland, 10 twentysomethings who bought five lots at a treasurer's sale last spring are shaping a hillside into terraces. To have something to show for their first season, they are preparing raised beds in plywood containers along the sloping dead-end street that looks out on the Monongahela River and the Birmingham Bridge.

"This year, we're focusing on remediation, terracing and putting in a watering system," said Claire Schoyer, one of the Landslide Community Farm members who rents homes nearby. Already, other neighbors are using the compost bin they built for the community, she said. "People have been pretty welcoming."