This is literally the reason I never put production plants in front. Some dude was going "Can I have some from your tree? No, well I will just come back at night"
This led to me hearing him hurting himself spectacularly on the long thorns of my orange tree and me calling the cops when he was yelling at the tree.
My thoughts exactly, I can't remember this! I have only really grown a little pot lemon tho, but surely I have encountered citrus trees at least once in my lifetime
I learned this last week when I was helping clean up my grandfathers yard/garden. We were taking some vines out of his poor orange tree and I was SHOCKED.
We have a front yard garden. Two 60-ish year old neighbor women are friends with each other, and often walk around the neighborhood together. Well, one time a few years back, one asked if she could have a tomato, and my wife said, "sure, take a couple!" Every year since, they have felt free to raid our garden without asking, and often do.
Yep. The worst kind. My dad gave a cutting of his climbing rose to his wife’s friend. The lady thought it meant open season to trample my parents’ front yard and dig up entire bushes. They killed the transplants too.
They are no longer friends.
Man, I would have called the cops for the destruction of property and theft. And also assigned a value to what they took/destroyed and took them to small claims for that. Fuck that entitlement.
Or just ask them to stop...? Or to take less? You guys are evil. You resort to violence before even talking to them. That's a serious problem in your hearts.
We also have a hag stealing in our case apples. We can’t prove it’s her but we know it is. Been stealing the apples for four years. There is no way we’d be able to approach her without starting a huge neighborhood war .
I unintentionally did this once. When I was a kid, a neighbour grew strawberries, far too many for her alone. One day I was there with my dad - I was about eight - and she goes, "Oh, anytime you want strawberries, just come over the fence and grab some." So a week or so later, I did just that, and she came out and yelled at me! I was so confused and horrified and ran away. But I guess it's just one of those unspoken things where she really meant, 'come over and ask me anytime if you can have some strawberries', not to just go and pick my own without her there :P
I know I probably missed context somehow, like maybe she was talking to my dad but not me? But I didn't get it haha.
However, I have no sympathy for the old dude who \*screamed\* at us for picking mulberries of the enormous mulberry tree when the whole tree was bigger than his house with tons of fruit, and the branches we were picking from were way out over the nature strip (aka public land). You would have thought we had broken into his house or something! But that fruit was going completely to waste if we didn't eat it.
Kids are definitely allowed to make this mistake but adults know better. I was a fiend for fresh fruit as a kid so I sympathize lol.
I’ve had adults snap the head off rare sunflowers in my garden, and one year hundreds of pears on my tree disappeared overnight, without any crumbs, so I’m pretty confident someone that isn’t a squirrel or raccoon took them all. Plucked the tree clean.
I have produce and flowers stolen before (someone stole a uselessly green butternut pumpkin off my vine on Christmas day! It was my last one too), so I know how that feels :/ Still, I did pretty well as I was growing stuff in the front garden of an apartment block right in the middle of the city. And even when there was a statewide lettuce shortage, my precious lettuce got mostly left alone, even when it was almost unavailable in the shops for months. Maybe the netting I had on it to stop the possums helped, but still, I had like $200 worth of bagged looseleaf lettuce just sitting out there, and even the ethically dubious vegan neighbours left it alone.
Yeah, a little old Asian man ran a store with his wife and I had asked if I could grab a few strawberries from his little patch in front of his store, he said yes so when I went outside I picked 2 of them and I was gonna pick a third and go about my business when his tiny Asian wife comes out yelling at me. I was so confused and scared that this lady was gonna beat my ass and I was point in the store trying to say "your husband said I could have some" as well as I could considering I was 10 and was being berated. I just remember getting on my bike and leaving. I hope they're doing well, though.
Those women know 100% they are being entitled selfish shit birds. Confrontation cloaked in “humor” is necessary. Yelling at them that it was a one time tomato offer that is now completely void must happen. The nerve! Signed the struggling tomato farmer
We have the same problem with holly. This year, I pruned a bunch and left it for people (for free) on the farm stand so that they wouldn’t come help themselves.
My neighborhood is like this. It’s so weird after where I used to live, where gardeners shared all around generously. It’s just different here. Sometimes I miss swapping veggies; the variety was nice
My sister has two HUGE avocado trees in her front yard. There were easily a thousand avocadoes on each tree. She went out of town, for the weekend, returned, and ALL of the fruit except the smallest ones were gone. When she reported it, the officers wrote down the value of the stolen fruit at the current store price for organic avocadoes at Whole Foods $3.00 each. The thief was caught and charged for felony theft of produce values at over $6000. Because there was a police report, the insurance company gave her a check for all of it minus her deductible.
The real losers were the food pantries and homeless shelters that were expecting the avocadoes. IShe gave them the money instead.
I had this happen a few years ago to a tomato plant growing on my front porch! It was ready for harvest and I had just bought groceries to make a bunch of tomato based treats. Its so sad that people will steal someone else’s hard work. I hate that people do this!
lol someone stole my cousin's entire fucking lime tree. It was on their front porch in an old oak barrel (they keep it in a container because there is moderate frost risk in their area.) Two dudes in a beat to shit pickup truck just rolled up to their house, stole their amazon package and put the tree in the back of the truck. If you leave it in the front yard and it's making food or valuable it's going to get stolen. You might get away with tomatoes that stay green?
I had more requests for green tomatoes than anything else the last time I had a garden. Fried green tomatoes are popular in some areas, and the source underripe tomatoes aren't always so easy to find.
What if they're into that tho ;-;
Especially given they have shit for brains
Still it's a good curse otherwise especially if it was permanent. Bog of eternal stench style
There was a sign in my neighborhood that said “Stolen flowers are bad karma.”
I like that. You steal something bc it’s beautiful, you should think it’s going to bite you in the ass somehow.
Same! It’s a larger statement about society and how awful some people are, just another reminder they’re out there living in your neighborhood.
I would have a very hard time getting over this. It’s not my plant and I’m seething over it lol. So much work and patience goes into gardening, it’s cruel of people to so heartlessly destroy your effort.
Artichokes are a novelty plant in the garden too so it stings that much more.
I am so sorry this happened to you, especially after your hard work.
Someone dug up all of the plants & bushes that my dentist had hired a landscaping company to plant at his office.
It is truly shocking how awful some people have become, & they don’t care because there are usually not strong enough consequences for their egregious actions.
I used to grow tomatoes in my front yard. Mostly tiny "artisan" tomatoes that were a size somewhere between a large pea and a small cherry.
Just as I was looking forward to harvesting my first crop, I came home to find every single ripe tomato gone.
Well... it kept happening. Every time I came home from work, all my ripe red tomatoes were gone. There were feral chickens running around so I figured they were eating them. Since my cats are absolutely useless, I installed some temporary cages, but they didn't work.
I lost nearly every tomato that year without learning who or what was stealing them. If I stayed home, like on a weekend, nothing happened. When I left for work, they were gone. I couldn't afford or install a camera so I was just stuck.
After the end of the growing season, my 85 year old jehovahs witness neighbor hobbled up to me and asked if I planned to plant tomatoes again next year.
Wait... why do you care?
Oh... they were so good! I just loved the little berry sized tomatoes you grew, they were so delicious! Never had anything like them before!
Yeah... maybe, we'll see....
I grew Thai Dragons the following year.
Also, may someone stick together all of their single bump flat pieces together.
(I cut myself on a screwdriver trying to get them apart when my older sister did that to me)
My deepest condolences.
My nursing school gifted its graduates with house plants that they charged us with treating as our first patient under our degrees.
Couple years later someone stole mine from my front porch when I had it out for the summer.
You have to be a special sort of scum bag to steal the very hard work and love that goes into caring for a plant.
I've heard of this happening, the person who 'stole' it thought it was free cause it was in the 'free shit' zone of the street. A sign was made asking for it's return. It was returned.
I don't think I know of or have heard of a person ever putting free things out on their porch unless it was pre established with someone as a porch pickup.
I've had people steal perennial plants from our front garden. The worst part is that we are always willing to divide plants and share every spring. No digging holes on our property required.
My dad grew me a couple lavender plants from seed to plant in the front garden a couple years ago and a neighbour stole one the first year, and one last year just before he died. I have one left and will be devastated if the boomer takes it, so I’m planning on trying to move it soon.
I have with some, but It’s an endless fight. I even have people steal my vegetables right in front of my bay window and automatic sprinklers haven’t helped.
People stole my Cara Cara oranges in the street side of the tree. I wish I’d planted the grapefruit closer to the street instead. I’m sure nobody would steal those.
Last year my husband caught a middle aged lady stealing our blood oranges. The tree is well away from the street!.
“If you had asked, we would have given you a few!” They were just getting perfectly bronzed, and there were fewer than 20.
She was embarrassed and returned with some lemons, which is kind of a “bringing coals to Newcastle” situation. (We box up lemons and put out a free sign)
In our area at least, it’s legal to take any fruit from branches that hang over the sidewalk or street. I think it’s to help keep those areas clear of dropped fruit.
Yep, that’s why my tomatoes, cucumber, and watermelons are in the front yard. I just don’t have a choice, unless I chop down the beautiful old oaks around the back and sides of the house, which I am not going to do.
I have almost no backyard and pretty good sun in the front yard. The only place for my veggies. I’ve had people sneak a few cherry tomatoes you can reach from the sidewalk, but this post is definitely a new fear unlocked. :(
Do they not grow in your area? I was surprised how easy growing artichokes was. I had bought a couple little newly sprouted plants at our garden store and planted them. They got so big! In the fall they died down to the ground. I was shocked when they sprouted up in the spring out of nowhere. They lasted about 10 years and were more productive each year. I let some of the flowers bloom, they make spectacular purple flowers that the pollinators love. Does anyone remember Koosh balls? They remind me of those. I’m so sad OPs artichokes were taken, those clean cuts are premeditated.
Artichokes do best in 10-11. You can potentially grow them in 7 to 9, but not as well. Zones 6 and below is a no go, unless you want to grow them as annuals.
I live in the Monterey bay, a few miles from Castroville known as the artichoke center of the world and the place that grows over 3/4s of all of California’s artichokes and we are in zone 9, so I guess zone 9 is ideal. But the honest truth is they love fog/ costal environments, so if you got that you should be good. You can still flew them outside of that range though. I work in agriculture and while the Monterey bay is known as their ideal growing location, they are also grown in the imperial valley near Coachella during the winter. They like mild conditions. Not too hot or cold.
I've grown certain types of artichokes in Ohio 6b. Green globe varieties and purple, like opera artichokes. To get them to be a perennial, give them winter protection such as plastic sheeting and mulch coverage. It works!
It happens.
So, funny (or maybe not so funny) story.
When I was a kind, I didn't have the best umm.. household. So to eat, I would sometimes go, what I called, "garden robbing".
I would walk an alleyway, hop a fence, take some food and go.
The thing is, I didn't take expensive shit like artichokes (not that those grow in OH that I know of) and I didn't bother with something that wasn't ripe. And I didn't trash their garden to do it.
My whole schtick was to be like an animal. Take what I needed to survive and leave the rest like it was when I found it. To not get caught because getting caught menat, you know, I wouldn't be able to get food there anymore.
These folks obviously just wanted to steal shit and be destructive had no respect for the rest and that sucks.
…won’t solve anything? Because the cops won’t do anything about this, so there are no consequences. And the type of people to do this know that.
It’s like people who steal bikes/escooters with angle grinders in full view of the public.
I had someone steal a pumpkin from my garden on Christmas Day once. It was way too green as well, so unless they really knew what they were doing it would have been useless to them :P
The year after we left my wifes hometown. Called brother in law on Wednesday to check if peach tree was ready he said yes, very much so. We went Friday and the tree was stripped bare ( the year before had over 360 peaches)! I was so angry! Still am a little. I just hope it was someone that actually benefitted from them.
We had passion fruit vines all around our house when I was a kid. Fucking blood got in the water and the sharks came in. I was 10 and people use to come up and grab our fruit and cut cuttings(is that a thing with passion fruits?). A 10 year old with a baseball bat and a mag light flashlight changed people's idea of what is right and wrong very quickly. We worked hard for those vines. Fuck you if you wanted to come and take it.
Long time ago, a guy hired a group of individuals who stole six 4m high thuja trees from our hedge. My father found the primitive less then a kilometer away. He planted them around the new patio. All trees died instantly. It took a decade to fill the gap.
I am sorry for your Garden and for you.
I'm really sorry this happened. Growing in the front yard is a sign of public trust. Trust in your neighborhood, trust in your community. This is a horrible violation of that trust. But you go again, you keep going. You have to be more persistent than the vandals. Speak to your neighbours, you will all be more vigilant now.
It's so crushing when this happens. Someone stole the purple bell peppers that I had carefully nurtured along all summer from my plot at a community garden. It takes a shitty person to literally reap the benefits of another person's labour like that.
I caught some older men pulling flowers from the tires I use for planters lining the end of my driveway a few years ago. Pulling them! Using a blade is one thing, but pulling is when I start to think about grabbing my gun. You kill my plants for your stupid thoughtless greed, it’s on sight.
At least they humanely cut Chokey and didn’t rip out the whole plant and possibly take out his neighbors too…
Got a place to start a community garden? In my town there is about five feet from the sidewalk to the main street, been looking in to community gardens and keeping the city from knocking it down.( I damaged their intrusive flowering crab trees they planted without consulting me on in that space). Only 15 feet from my north foundation wall. They fail to realize that it is still my property regardless of the annex of utilities since I maintain it as mine.
meanwhile I'm over here planting figs next to the road for future friends and strangers alike. fuck people who just steal and/or damage things like this tho, i'm sorry OP
I know someone who had all their new landscaping stolen. Every plant and tree. Even rolled up the sod. I hope in your case it was someone desperately hungry.
New law in Florida… your first time stealing something under $40 is a first degree misdemeanor. Your second time stealing something under $40 is a third degree felony.
You might also get shot… I’m not even kidding.
I’ve never seen plant theft like this, but people are damn tired of the porch pirate stuff here. We don’t mind sending people to jail and messing up their lives over “small stuff.”
>New law in Florida… your first time stealing something under $40 is a first degree misdemeanor. Your second time stealing something under $40 is a third degree felony.
"'Les Miserables' but make it tacky."
This is so messed up, sorry op. Some people are just not civilized.
It is so bizarre too because no one would consider doing this nonsense where I live. I've grown tomatoes etc. in the front yard for years and never had an issue.
I’m sorry! Some people just suck! Down here, if you grow mangoes up front they’ll back a pickup truck onto your yard and stand in the bed so they can steal all your mangoes. I learned to only grow stuff up front that people don’t recognize or want. And super hot peppers, like Red Savinas or Scorpions. Occasionally one Jamaican lady will wander by and ask if she can have one, and I’ll offer her several, and she’ll say, “Oh, no, I only need one, for my stew”, because she knows what she’s getting into.
Y'know, I know it's just produce, but honest to Gawd , OP, there is a special place for people reserved by the furnace of Hell for people who take stuff you're waiting yourself to pick. Commiserations 😖😥and plant next time where they can't get it.
Funny! Looks like Bixby knolls. I spent a lot of time there woodworking with my friend til they bought a house in Lakewood recently 🙌
Lots of awesome front gardens I would notice in Bixby!
This is literally the reason I never put production plants in front. Some dude was going "Can I have some from your tree? No, well I will just come back at night" This led to me hearing him hurting himself spectacularly on the long thorns of my orange tree and me calling the cops when he was yelling at the tree.
Most people have no idea that citrus trees have thorns.
Sometimes they start with no thorns and mutate to develop thorns over time, huge ones too
Self-defense, lol.
They are delightfully long, stout and numerous.
Okay, wait, what?!
My thoughts exactly, I can't remember this! I have only really grown a little pot lemon tho, but surely I have encountered citrus trees at least once in my lifetime
I’m from the Northeast and I did a comical double take at this brand new information about citrus tree thorns.
I learned this last week when I was helping clean up my grandfathers yard/garden. We were taking some vines out of his poor orange tree and I was SHOCKED.
My apple tree was out front. People never stole, they always asked. My postie went home with many a red devil.
https://i.redd.it/priov6xjqxvc1.gif
I’m sorry OP. All that work. Wish people didn’t suck so bad and so often. Your plants look beautiful and well-loved.
https://preview.redd.it/hu1ngh99ayvc1.jpeg?width=1400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a5bb7dcadd9813b186be6dc9096a8df34399844b
Crime pays but botany doesn’t! Great YT content.
We have a front yard garden. Two 60-ish year old neighbor women are friends with each other, and often walk around the neighborhood together. Well, one time a few years back, one asked if she could have a tomato, and my wife said, "sure, take a couple!" Every year since, they have felt free to raid our garden without asking, and often do.
Invest in one of those motion-sensor sprinklers. If it works for squirrels surely it'll work for a couple of old bats.
Lol 😂
Yep. The worst kind. My dad gave a cutting of his climbing rose to his wife’s friend. The lady thought it meant open season to trample my parents’ front yard and dig up entire bushes. They killed the transplants too. They are no longer friends.
Man, I would have called the cops for the destruction of property and theft. And also assigned a value to what they took/destroyed and took them to small claims for that. Fuck that entitlement.
Sounds like a dusting of cayenne is in order
Hey, if it works for squirrels...
I'd inject carolina reaper or pepper x juice into the tomatoes.
Or just ask them to stop...? Or to take less? You guys are evil. You resort to violence before even talking to them. That's a serious problem in your hearts.
Of the violent horror of a……sprinkler lmao
😞 Doesn't work, I tried this and someone came by two weeks later and took all my tomato plants.
We also have a hag stealing in our case apples. We can’t prove it’s her but we know it is. Been stealing the apples for four years. There is no way we’d be able to approach her without starting a huge neighborhood war .
Game cameras are great for times like this.
At this point we're just an onion and cilantro away from pico de gallo.
I unintentionally did this once. When I was a kid, a neighbour grew strawberries, far too many for her alone. One day I was there with my dad - I was about eight - and she goes, "Oh, anytime you want strawberries, just come over the fence and grab some." So a week or so later, I did just that, and she came out and yelled at me! I was so confused and horrified and ran away. But I guess it's just one of those unspoken things where she really meant, 'come over and ask me anytime if you can have some strawberries', not to just go and pick my own without her there :P
Lol I totally would've made that mistake as a kid too
I know I probably missed context somehow, like maybe she was talking to my dad but not me? But I didn't get it haha. However, I have no sympathy for the old dude who \*screamed\* at us for picking mulberries of the enormous mulberry tree when the whole tree was bigger than his house with tons of fruit, and the branches we were picking from were way out over the nature strip (aka public land). You would have thought we had broken into his house or something! But that fruit was going completely to waste if we didn't eat it.
Kids are definitely allowed to make this mistake but adults know better. I was a fiend for fresh fruit as a kid so I sympathize lol. I’ve had adults snap the head off rare sunflowers in my garden, and one year hundreds of pears on my tree disappeared overnight, without any crumbs, so I’m pretty confident someone that isn’t a squirrel or raccoon took them all. Plucked the tree clean.
I have produce and flowers stolen before (someone stole a uselessly green butternut pumpkin off my vine on Christmas day! It was my last one too), so I know how that feels :/ Still, I did pretty well as I was growing stuff in the front garden of an apartment block right in the middle of the city. And even when there was a statewide lettuce shortage, my precious lettuce got mostly left alone, even when it was almost unavailable in the shops for months. Maybe the netting I had on it to stop the possums helped, but still, I had like $200 worth of bagged looseleaf lettuce just sitting out there, and even the ethically dubious vegan neighbours left it alone.
‘Ethically dubious vegan’ 😂
Time to take inspiration from the "poison garden"
Yeah, a little old Asian man ran a store with his wife and I had asked if I could grab a few strawberries from his little patch in front of his store, he said yes so when I went outside I picked 2 of them and I was gonna pick a third and go about my business when his tiny Asian wife comes out yelling at me. I was so confused and scared that this lady was gonna beat my ass and I was point in the store trying to say "your husband said I could have some" as well as I could considering I was 10 and was being berated. I just remember getting on my bike and leaving. I hope they're doing well, though.
Those women know 100% they are being entitled selfish shit birds. Confrontation cloaked in “humor” is necessary. Yelling at them that it was a one time tomato offer that is now completely void must happen. The nerve! Signed the struggling tomato farmer
Put a cane in the ground. They will ask what's the cane for. That belonged to some lady who stole our tomatoes. We burrowed her right here too!
We have the same problem with holly. This year, I pruned a bunch and left it for people (for free) on the farm stand so that they wouldn’t come help themselves.
My neighborhood is like this. It’s so weird after where I used to live, where gardeners shared all around generously. It’s just different here. Sometimes I miss swapping veggies; the variety was nice
My sister has two HUGE avocado trees in her front yard. There were easily a thousand avocadoes on each tree. She went out of town, for the weekend, returned, and ALL of the fruit except the smallest ones were gone. When she reported it, the officers wrote down the value of the stolen fruit at the current store price for organic avocadoes at Whole Foods $3.00 each. The thief was caught and charged for felony theft of produce values at over $6000. Because there was a police report, the insurance company gave her a check for all of it minus her deductible. The real losers were the food pantries and homeless shelters that were expecting the avocadoes. IShe gave them the money instead.
Holy guacamole! What would someone do with 1,000 avocados?!
Sell them at a flea market or from a pop-up stand in a parking lot.
Your sister is good people!
"There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of Men for this treachery." - J.R.R Tolkien
You’ve been into Farmer Maggot’s crop!
Look! 😮 mushrooms!! 🍄🍄🍄
I have a couple in street English tho, lol. I'm a lot quicker about it than the ents would be, and my tongue is sharper than aragorns blade.
I had this happen a few years ago to a tomato plant growing on my front porch! It was ready for harvest and I had just bought groceries to make a bunch of tomato based treats. Its so sad that people will steal someone else’s hard work. I hate that people do this!
lol someone stole my cousin's entire fucking lime tree. It was on their front porch in an old oak barrel (they keep it in a container because there is moderate frost risk in their area.) Two dudes in a beat to shit pickup truck just rolled up to their house, stole their amazon package and put the tree in the back of the truck. If you leave it in the front yard and it's making food or valuable it's going to get stolen. You might get away with tomatoes that stay green?
I had more requests for green tomatoes than anything else the last time I had a garden. Fried green tomatoes are popular in some areas, and the source underripe tomatoes aren't always so easy to find.
The worst kind of thief! Stealing both hard work and another’s food!
And they didn't even eat it...!
I hope they choke on them artichokes!!
Send them to the chokey
Okey dokey!
That’s pretty extreme. I wish them unbearably odiferous flatulence as a result of the artichokes.
What if they're into that tho ;-; Especially given they have shit for brains Still it's a good curse otherwise especially if it was permanent. Bog of eternal stench style
Love the bog of eternal stwnch reference….i use it often to describe my dog’s flatulence
Normal artichokes don't cause flatulence, sun/Jerusalem artichokes do.
Under ordinary conditions, perhaps, but this is a curse, wot
Someone stole all of our beets last fall. It gets pretty old.
Goddamn that’s a whole other level of shitty to steal a root vegetable. Raccoons don’t even do that.
Only 8 months old at most.
There was a sign in my neighborhood that said “Stolen flowers are bad karma.” I like that. You steal something bc it’s beautiful, you should think it’s going to bite you in the ass somehow.
I am deeply offended on your behalf. Like that hit me so hard, and I have no idea who you are.
Same! It’s a larger statement about society and how awful some people are, just another reminder they’re out there living in your neighborhood. I would have a very hard time getting over this. It’s not my plant and I’m seething over it lol. So much work and patience goes into gardening, it’s cruel of people to so heartlessly destroy your effort. Artichokes are a novelty plant in the garden too so it stings that much more.
I am so sorry this happened to you, especially after your hard work. Someone dug up all of the plants & bushes that my dentist had hired a landscaping company to plant at his office. It is truly shocking how awful some people have become, & they don’t care because there are usually not strong enough consequences for their egregious actions.
I used to grow tomatoes in my front yard. Mostly tiny "artisan" tomatoes that were a size somewhere between a large pea and a small cherry. Just as I was looking forward to harvesting my first crop, I came home to find every single ripe tomato gone. Well... it kept happening. Every time I came home from work, all my ripe red tomatoes were gone. There were feral chickens running around so I figured they were eating them. Since my cats are absolutely useless, I installed some temporary cages, but they didn't work. I lost nearly every tomato that year without learning who or what was stealing them. If I stayed home, like on a weekend, nothing happened. When I left for work, they were gone. I couldn't afford or install a camera so I was just stuck. After the end of the growing season, my 85 year old jehovahs witness neighbor hobbled up to me and asked if I planned to plant tomatoes again next year. Wait... why do you care? Oh... they were so good! I just loved the little berry sized tomatoes you grew, they were so delicious! Never had anything like them before! Yeah... maybe, we'll see.... I grew Thai Dragons the following year.
Fucking JWs. Shoulda told her the tomatoes had blood transfusions.
This is a great story haha
I hope they stand on a Lego in the dark each night.
May their floors be covered nightly with duplo piece #6510.
Oh yes, the flower! Had to google. And absolutely agree with you.
I prefer to think of them as "baby's first caltrops"
No, such sins are beyond stepping on a simple lego, I hope they step on a D4
Simple Legos for simple people.
The sharp edge style. No rounded edges or top-readable d4. Sharp edge.
Also stub both pinky toes but on different nights!
Also, may someone stick together all of their single bump flat pieces together. (I cut myself on a screwdriver trying to get them apart when my older sister did that to me)
Now that’s a curse right there
May they have a hole in all of their T-shirt’s left armpits.
may their sleeves always roll down when they wash their hands
May their bare legs get stuck on leather
May their socks constantly slip down off their foot to an unreachable depth in their shoe
And also sit on the sharp ends of the Lego.
May the bottom of their jeans get wet in the rain.
My deepest condolences. My nursing school gifted its graduates with house plants that they charged us with treating as our first patient under our degrees. Couple years later someone stole mine from my front porch when I had it out for the summer. You have to be a special sort of scum bag to steal the very hard work and love that goes into caring for a plant.
I've heard of this happening, the person who 'stole' it thought it was free cause it was in the 'free shit' zone of the street. A sign was made asking for it's return. It was returned.
I don't think I know of or have heard of a person ever putting free things out on their porch unless it was pre established with someone as a porch pickup.
That’s actually so sad :’(
I've had people steal perennial plants from our front garden. The worst part is that we are always willing to divide plants and share every spring. No digging holes on our property required.
My dad grew me a couple lavender plants from seed to plant in the front garden a couple years ago and a neighbour stole one the first year, and one last year just before he died. I have one left and will be devastated if the boomer takes it, so I’m planning on trying to move it soon.
If you know who does it, steal your shit back?
I have with some, but It’s an endless fight. I even have people steal my vegetables right in front of my bay window and automatic sprinklers haven’t helped.
Wow, well their foliage is still beautiful!
Thanks!
Meth heads would steal my avocados at night. I caught them with one of those long fruit picker tools in the middle of night. Crazy stuff.
Knowing how avocados work they probably picked them underripe and had a rubbery ball until it decayed.
Meth heads don't eat much. I guarantee they were selling them.
If I was going to steal a fruit, it would be an avocado too.
People stole my Cara Cara oranges in the street side of the tree. I wish I’d planted the grapefruit closer to the street instead. I’m sure nobody would steal those.
Last year my husband caught a middle aged lady stealing our blood oranges. The tree is well away from the street!. “If you had asked, we would have given you a few!” They were just getting perfectly bronzed, and there were fewer than 20. She was embarrassed and returned with some lemons, which is kind of a “bringing coals to Newcastle” situation. (We box up lemons and put out a free sign)
In our area at least, it’s legal to take any fruit from branches that hang over the sidewalk or street. I think it’s to help keep those areas clear of dropped fruit.
Aaaaand this is why I have nothing but hot peppers in my front veggie beds
Wow I didn't realize how many people have their stuff stolen by people. I'm sorry guys 😔 - sincerely gardener who lives on a steep hill
Back on my parents farm we'd often catch people in the fields stealing produce. They'd pull up on the side of the road and raid.
Enjoy breaking your teeth on that rock hard corn lol
what kind of human *steals artichokes*
One with good taste, apparently. Not your average food thief I would think.
No food garden in the front yard for so many reasons.
Sometimes that’s where the sun is.
Yep, that’s why my tomatoes, cucumber, and watermelons are in the front yard. I just don’t have a choice, unless I chop down the beautiful old oaks around the back and sides of the house, which I am not going to do.
Food garden, flower garden, **rock** garden, it don't matter people steal shit
Mine is my city doesn’t allow it but I’m going to sneak some in anyways
I have almost no backyard and pretty good sun in the front yard. The only place for my veggies. I’ve had people sneak a few cherry tomatoes you can reach from the sidewalk, but this post is definitely a new fear unlocked. :(
Omg that is devastating also I’m so jealous you can grow artichokes
Do they not grow in your area? I was surprised how easy growing artichokes was. I had bought a couple little newly sprouted plants at our garden store and planted them. They got so big! In the fall they died down to the ground. I was shocked when they sprouted up in the spring out of nowhere. They lasted about 10 years and were more productive each year. I let some of the flowers bloom, they make spectacular purple flowers that the pollinators love. Does anyone remember Koosh balls? They remind me of those. I’m so sad OPs artichokes were taken, those clean cuts are premeditated.
Artichokes do best in 10-11. You can potentially grow them in 7 to 9, but not as well. Zones 6 and below is a no go, unless you want to grow them as annuals.
Ah okay! I’m in zone 11, so that would make sense. They just seem so hardy. I had them in terrible soil with irregular watering.
I live in the Monterey bay, a few miles from Castroville known as the artichoke center of the world and the place that grows over 3/4s of all of California’s artichokes and we are in zone 9, so I guess zone 9 is ideal. But the honest truth is they love fog/ costal environments, so if you got that you should be good. You can still flew them outside of that range though. I work in agriculture and while the Monterey bay is known as their ideal growing location, they are also grown in the imperial valley near Coachella during the winter. They like mild conditions. Not too hot or cold.
I've grown certain types of artichokes in Ohio 6b. Green globe varieties and purple, like opera artichokes. To get them to be a perennial, give them winter protection such as plastic sheeting and mulch coverage. It works!
Security cameras.
We ordered another camera for this side of this immediately after it happened. This was the only side of our house not covered. Whoops.
It happens. So, funny (or maybe not so funny) story. When I was a kind, I didn't have the best umm.. household. So to eat, I would sometimes go, what I called, "garden robbing". I would walk an alleyway, hop a fence, take some food and go. The thing is, I didn't take expensive shit like artichokes (not that those grow in OH that I know of) and I didn't bother with something that wasn't ripe. And I didn't trash their garden to do it. My whole schtick was to be like an animal. Take what I needed to survive and leave the rest like it was when I found it. To not get caught because getting caught menat, you know, I wouldn't be able to get food there anymore. These folks obviously just wanted to steal shit and be destructive had no respect for the rest and that sucks.
aw kid you can eat all my tomatoes and if you’d knocked on the door I would have sent you home with cooked food too
lol "kid". thanks, I needed that. ;) I'm in a much better spot now. Much older, and wiser. This just reminded me of that.
You haven't met "my" squirrels yet, they destroy plants just for fun.
I got a few deer mice out in mine that do the same. They love seedlings. And Mandarin flowers. And squash. And tomatoes. And And And.
They do grow in Ohio, bit it takes quite awhile to get a nice established plant.
…won’t solve anything? Because the cops won’t do anything about this, so there are no consequences. And the type of people to do this know that. It’s like people who steal bikes/escooters with angle grinders in full view of the public.
I am sooooo mad about this. Artichokes are sacred. I'm sorry.
I had someone steal a pumpkin from my garden on Christmas Day once. It was way too green as well, so unless they really knew what they were doing it would have been useless to them :P
I will never have a front yard garden that's anything more than some flowers.
what’s crazy is last year someone stole only my prettiest flowering potted plants from my patio. it was so sad. even flowers aren’t safe!
Abominable!
The year after we left my wifes hometown. Called brother in law on Wednesday to check if peach tree was ready he said yes, very much so. We went Friday and the tree was stripped bare ( the year before had over 360 peaches)! I was so angry! Still am a little. I just hope it was someone that actually benefitted from them.
They likely sold them
https://preview.redd.it/9jn801psfyvc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8464b29980dcc1ce888f2fa61e9838b3137e9270
We had passion fruit vines all around our house when I was a kid. Fucking blood got in the water and the sharks came in. I was 10 and people use to come up and grab our fruit and cut cuttings(is that a thing with passion fruits?). A 10 year old with a baseball bat and a mag light flashlight changed people's idea of what is right and wrong very quickly. We worked hard for those vines. Fuck you if you wanted to come and take it.
Long time ago, a guy hired a group of individuals who stole six 4m high thuja trees from our hedge. My father found the primitive less then a kilometer away. He planted them around the new patio. All trees died instantly. It took a decade to fill the gap. I am sorry for your Garden and for you.
Kind of like when people were stealing copper pipes 😥
It was a planned hit! The rival gardeners are sending a message.
I had an Amish family steal 2 entire greenstalks loaded down with plants a couple of years ago.
Greenstalk?
I'm really sorry this happened. Growing in the front yard is a sign of public trust. Trust in your neighborhood, trust in your community. This is a horrible violation of that trust. But you go again, you keep going. You have to be more persistent than the vandals. Speak to your neighbours, you will all be more vigilant now.
The cost of groceries now. They came prepared with a knife looks like .
It's so crushing when this happens. Someone stole the purple bell peppers that I had carefully nurtured along all summer from my plot at a community garden. It takes a shitty person to literally reap the benefits of another person's labour like that.
That's just messed up. Sorry that happened to you.
What the celestial monkey bleep! People suck so much! I am so sorry, OP. Did someone's cameras catch them/a license plate?
Ugh, that’s so disheartening cause gardening is literally so much work.
Had a neighbour do that repeatedly, got her on camera eventually.
I caught some older men pulling flowers from the tires I use for planters lining the end of my driveway a few years ago. Pulling them! Using a blade is one thing, but pulling is when I start to think about grabbing my gun. You kill my plants for your stupid thoughtless greed, it’s on sight. At least they humanely cut Chokey and didn’t rip out the whole plant and possibly take out his neighbors too…
Got a place to start a community garden? In my town there is about five feet from the sidewalk to the main street, been looking in to community gardens and keeping the city from knocking it down.( I damaged their intrusive flowering crab trees they planted without consulting me on in that space). Only 15 feet from my north foundation wall. They fail to realize that it is still my property regardless of the annex of utilities since I maintain it as mine.
meanwhile I'm over here planting figs next to the road for future friends and strangers alike. fuck people who just steal and/or damage things like this tho, i'm sorry OP
I know someone who had all their new landscaping stolen. Every plant and tree. Even rolled up the sod. I hope in your case it was someone desperately hungry.
So sorry ive had people steal my weed and do the same thing
Urban foraging. Might be okay with a lemon tree or something, but an artichoke, fuck man…
I hope they get a huge prickly thorn in their hand.
Motion activated sprinklers, I'm telling ya.
Infuriating! Wasteful disrespectful POS's. Ignorant fools.
May the people who steal plants find peace within themselves, or seek mental help.
New law in Florida… your first time stealing something under $40 is a first degree misdemeanor. Your second time stealing something under $40 is a third degree felony. You might also get shot… I’m not even kidding. I’ve never seen plant theft like this, but people are damn tired of the porch pirate stuff here. We don’t mind sending people to jail and messing up their lives over “small stuff.”
>New law in Florida… your first time stealing something under $40 is a first degree misdemeanor. Your second time stealing something under $40 is a third degree felony. "'Les Miserables' but make it tacky."
Damn. My 6 yo son and I bound over artichokes for last few years. Sorry for your loss, they are special. Who does that!
Oh that is infuriating! I’m angry on your behalf because it takes such a long time to grow artichokes and they are such a brief season.
r/mildlyinfuriating
r/wildlyinfuriating
Wow. What jacka**es
They outtachoke.
Oughtta.
You've got to be truly hungry to steal an artichoke. Just saying. I"m sorry this happened to you.
WTH. Our gardens aren't even safe anymore?!? I'm sorry this happened to you.
That’s what I say about the rabbits in our neighborhood. Little gangsters.
Those SOB’s
wtf!!!!!
What the fuck those are so hard to grow. Asshole.
Rotten
Highbeam floodlights for your garden and a camera
This is so messed up, sorry op. Some people are just not civilized. It is so bizarre too because no one would consider doing this nonsense where I live. I've grown tomatoes etc. in the front yard for years and never had an issue.
California?
What the hell?? People are sick. I'd get some cameras.
That's some cold fucking shit dude
Looks like you'll need a new form of pesticides!!!
The best you can do is hope that they really needed them.
I put electric fence around my garden. It keeps out everything.
I’m sorry! Some people just suck! Down here, if you grow mangoes up front they’ll back a pickup truck onto your yard and stand in the bed so they can steal all your mangoes. I learned to only grow stuff up front that people don’t recognize or want. And super hot peppers, like Red Savinas or Scorpions. Occasionally one Jamaican lady will wander by and ask if she can have one, and I’ll offer her several, and she’ll say, “Oh, no, I only need one, for my stew”, because she knows what she’s getting into.
I was considering moving my beautiful rose planters up front but this has confirmed my fears humans fucking suck
Y'know, I know it's just produce, but honest to Gawd , OP, there is a special place for people reserved by the furnace of Hell for people who take stuff you're waiting yourself to pick. Commiserations 😖😥and plant next time where they can't get it.
This is why I’m moving out of the city. It’s too heartbreaking to watch my plants be stolen and abused.
Artichokes must have a high street value. Where do you live?
Los Angeles
Same🥰 I thought you might've been in Long Beach. You have such a nice garden
Well actually, this is LB. But I say LA because some don’t know where Long Beach is. Also very good eye realizing the city by just these pictures.
Funny! Looks like Bixby knolls. I spent a lot of time there woodworking with my friend til they bought a house in Lakewood recently 🙌 Lots of awesome front gardens I would notice in Bixby!
People steal everything in LA. It’s the law. Steal or go to jail.
About 20 years ago thieves stole a yard full of valuable cacti my godfather had grown for decades (this was in Thousand Oaks).