By Karen Klinger

If Old MacDonald had a farm, why not the city of Cambridge?

As the sustainable-food movement gains in popularity in the United States and Michelle Obama spearheads the creation of a White House vegetable garden, city officials are talking about establishing a farm on some of the 1,200 acres of watershed land Cambridge owns in Lincoln, Weston, Waltham and Lexington.

City Councilor Henrietta Davis said the idea being discussed is to establish a “demonstration” or interpretative farm that would especially benefit the city’s schoolchildren, many of whom have no chance to cultivate backyard gardens or visit popular attractions such as the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Drumlin Farm in Lincoln.

Children who “have everything” love visiting farms, Davis noted, so the city should try to provide the same opportunity for those who do not have as much.

She said administrators at the Cambridge Water Department, who oversee the watershed land that surrounds the city’s two reservoirs, have been receptive to the concept, which could take a year or more to become a reality. If it does, Davis thinks the farm could be not only a good teaching tool but a source of produce for recipients such as food banks.

In the meantime, residents are gearing up for spring planting, including more than 450 people who have plots in the 13 city-owned community gardens, which are administered by the Cambridge Conservation Commission. The plots have become so popular that Davis said several dozen people currently are on a waiting list to get one.

The gardens are scattered throughout the city, from the Whittemore Avenue Garden near the Arlington line to the newest one at Costa Lopez Taylor Park in East Cambridge, which NeighborMedia correspondent Mark Jaquith spotlighted last October (www.cctvcambridge.org/node/4747).

Under the conservation commission's guidelines, each household is entitled to one garden plot, with priority given to Cambridge residents who have no other land on which to garden. Among the other rules:

• The distribution of the plots is based on a lottery system conducted by the city. Gardeners are given a plot for three years, with some exceptions for a new garden, and in no case will anyone have a plot for more than five years.
• At least one-third of the plots must turn over annually, with the quota met either by the departure or policy non-compliance of plot holders or the random redistribution of plots from gardeners who have held them the longest.
• Each community garden must have a coordinator elected annually by the plot holders. The coordinator will handle such tasks as orienting newcomers to operating procedures, dealing with trash disposal and directing mulch and composting activities and clean-up days.
• In the interest of safety, use of herbicides and pesticides is prohibited, fertilizers cannot be left on-site or unattended and tools generally must be stored off the site. The city must approve the installation of a storage shed or other structure.
• The design and layout of all community gardens must comply with the
  Americans with Disabilities Act and be accessible.

An application for a garden plot can be downloaded from the conservation commission website (www.cambridgema.gov/CCC/).

For families with children in school, as well as other residents, another way to use green thumbs is through the CitySprouts program, which says its mission is to “develop, implement and maintain beautiful, resources-rich school gardens in collaboration with public school communities.”

The program’s website (www.citysprouts.org) says that beginning on the week of April 27th, families and community members are welcome to take part in “drop-in” activities at primary schools throughout Cambridge, which will include garden maintenance work and demonstrations continuing during the growing season.

To learn more about CitySprouts, see NeighborMedia correspondent Sharon Stentiford’s story about staffer Jane Smillie Hirischi and the opportunities the program provides for young participants (www.cctvcambridge.org/node/2059).

For those who want to create their own food source, there are alternatives to gardening. At a recent event hosted by Davis, the talk among some attendees turned to residents who are raising chickens. Someone asked, “But is that legal?”

In Cambridge, yes. As the website “The City Chicken” helpfully explains (www.thecitychicken.com), Boston prohibits raising poultry, but in Cambridge, “Nowhere are chickens mentioned in the city codes. The city itself comments that as long as the chickens are ‘pets,’ there is nothing to enforce or not to enforce.”

The same thing goes for beekeeping, which is prohibited in New York City, but encouraged in Massachusetts. The state’s chief apiary inspector has said that regulations here are “designed to enhance,” rather than discourage, keeping hives.

He suggests, however, putting hives in inconspicuous places so as not to alarm the neighbors. Neighbor awareness would seem to apply to chickens as well: hens are OK, roosters, probably not.