The din of a neighborhood gathering made it hard to hear Barbara Finnin as she strolled through a dense garden thriving on a once vacant lot in West Oakland.

On all four corners near the fenced-in garden, a dozen adults, young and old, shouted greetings and comments. Some sat in white plastic chairs, others leaned against walls, and several swigged from bottles covered with brown paper bags.

Two or three children played on the streets, which featured a couple of tidy homes, a few boarded-up ones, and others in between.

Ignoring the ruckus, Finnin, executive director of City Slicker Farms, pointed to the plum, mulberry, fig, cherry and apple trees, the climbing vines, and planting beds growing thick with produce such as lettuce, carrots, garlic and strawberries. On one side of the garden, honey bees unhurriedly entered and exited two white boxes, and building material lay on the floor of a partially-built henhouse in the corner.

Then lifelong West Oakland resident Charles Brown, 31, walked toward Finnin, smiling broadly with his hand outstretched.

"You all are doing a pretty good job," he tells Finnin, shaking her hand. "It's great here. This is what we want to see. Gardens and fruit and everything we need."

There's no grocery store in West Oakland, a low-income neighborhood of 23,000. A nearby corner market gamely sells some produce - cabbage, onions, potatoes, oranges and apples - but the latter were bruised and old.

In contrast, when the garden's chained gate opens at 10 a.m. Saturdays, residents can buy inexpensive freshly-picked organic produce, newly-gathered eggs and Oakland-made honey at a farm stand run by City Slicker's, a nonprofit dedicated to developing urban agriculture in West Oakland.

"People come super early for our honey and eggs," said Finnin.

Brown said his mother buys collard greens from the stand "to make the old recipes."

In counties around the Bay Area, there's a similar burst of agriculture in formerly empty fields, vacant lots and backyards.

Older farms, survivors of a long-gone pastoral era, are also facing a fresh future as new markets and policies support their operations. And a new generation of farmers dedicated to environmentally-friendly practices and equitable distribution of fresh foods are starting new endeavors with colorful names.

From 2002 to 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported a surge in the growth of small farms in the Bay Area, with a 24 percent increase in Alameda County, 7 percent in Contra Costa County, 8 percent in San Mateo County, 4 percent in Santa Clara County, and 13 percent in Napa County. (The agency didn't survey San Francisco.)

It's a trend occurring nationwide, as the number of U.S. farms grew 4 percent during that time. 

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