More and more Americans are choosing to "farm" on whatever small scale they can manage. For some, it means seeing the possibilities in even the tiniest imaginable space. A Character Approved Midwestern transplant does just that, growing food for his table and connecting with neighbors, nature and humanity in a four-foot by four-foot garden plot in New York City.

By most standards, real estate consultant Peter Bazeli and his physician wife Lisa Nathan live the big city dream. Their Upper West Side apartment faces New York's green jewel, Central Park. But like Eddie Albert's character in the '60s sitcom Green Acres, Peter sometimes dreams of farming. So he rents a tiny plot in Manhattan's West 104th Street Community Garden, where he and Lisa raise heirloom tomatoes, broccoli, peppers, eggplants, lettuce and spinach.

They come by their gardening instincts naturally, both having grown up in families of avid gardeners--Peter in DeKalb, Illinois, and Lisa in Peoria, a little over 100 miles away. Peter started out helping his parents in the garden, then gradually took over. He even put in a fish pond which he still maintains for them on visits home.

Gardening in such a tiny space is not without its challenges. Peter solved his limited square-footage problem the same way Manhattan did--he went vertical. He trains his tomato plants skyward, growing them nine or 10 feet tall. With the community garden flanked by five-story buildings, sunlight is also an issue--he gets less of it in summer than in early spring. So Peter races to get plants in the ground as early as April, to give them a head start over neighboring gardeners' plants and the peach tree partially overlapping his plot. "You become acutely aware of all these little details," Peter says.

The 16-square-foot garden brings plenty of rewards too, besides delicious, absolutely fresh produce. It provides momentary escape from city life and, as Peter puts it, "a connection to slower, more nurturing processes."

Peter's other urban escape is mushroom foraging, something he does as nearby as Central Park and as far away as Connecticut. A member of the New York Mycological Society, Peter knows what to pick and what to avoid. His biggest problem is ticks. He has actually had Lyme disease, a fact he wears as a badge of honor and armor against future infection.

Make no mistake: Peter and Lisa love their very urban life together in New York. But they also love their green .000367 acres.

[Image: Peter Bazeli]