The food grid, that is.

Imagine, fewer dispiriting trips to the grocery store, with its endless aisles, too-bright lights, long check-out lines, and, these days, ridiculously high prices.

He's growing all the food he needs for his family on his two-acre micro-farm in Monroe Township, N.J. - or at least, he's trying to.

"I'm moving in that direction," Heckman says. "I haven't gotten there yet."

These days, a lot of people, blanching at $4-a-gallon gasoline, have rolled the car into the garage and oiled up the bicycle. Or they're taking the train to work. Some are buying motorcycles.

So you might think Heckman stands at the forefront of a huge social movement, the lead of a rebellious legion of consumers who balk at paying $2 a pound for apples and cry out, "No more! I'm growing my own food!"

And if so, you would be wrong. The grow-all-your-own-food frontier is a lonely outpost. The problem is, it's hard to get the math to work.

All those people on bikes and trains are essentially trading one energy cost for another, by shifting their mode of transportation. But to grow your own food requires the creation of a whole new, individual infrastructure. And once created, it needs supervision. Gardens don't weed themselves.

That's one reason more people don't do it. That and the fact that, in this country, people tend to be absorbed by activities that limit their time for farming. Like, say, working at jobs, so they can pay the mortgage.

That doesn't mean more people aren't growing some of their food. W. Atlee Burpee Co. reported that sales of vegetable seed are up by more than 30 percent over last year. Anecdotal evidence from gardeners and vendors suggests many believe that tending even a small plot will take pressure off their household budget.

This year, according to the Garden Writers Association of America, 39 percent of people who have gardens or yards plan to grow vegetables - up 11 percent from two years ago. Food safety issues, like the latest problem with tainted tomatoes, may also be fueling the growth.

"People are paying attention to things my friends and I have been doing all along," says David Siller, an educator at Weavers Way Farm in Philadelphia.

Roger Doiron, founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International, a Maine group that promotes food self-reliance, says: "It does involve a longer-term commitment than simply saying, 'Today I'm going to take my bike.' "

But, he says, the savings can be dramatic: Seeds for 10 tomato plants cost about 20 cents. The starter mix is $2. Each plant will produce about eight pounds of tomatoes. At the grocery store, those 80 pounds of tomatoes, at $3 a pound, would cost $240.

Of course, that calculation doesn't include the cost of other gardening supplies. Or the cost of labor, which the home farmer provides for free.

Can it be done? Can you, the typical consumer, go completely off the food grid? Sure you can! How are you with a rifle? It'll help if you know how to hunt. If you want to eat meat, that is. You'll also need to learn to preserve veggies and fruits. Otherwise the winter supplies can get kind of thin.

Setting up that canning or jarring operation is going to cost a few bucks. As will the seed, fertilizer, stakes, string, water and tools needed to get your own personal supermarket off the ground in the first place. Which is, again, why all the people standing on train platforms are not standing in gardens instead.

The Manalapan Brook flows past Heckman's house, but the waterway isn't what defines his Middlesex County property. Carved into his backyard is plot after plot of crops, an off-kilter, green-and-brown chessboard.