An interracial gay couple who turned a once-fallow patch of rural Virginia into one of the state’s most celebrated small farms awoke Wednesday to find what they described as an unmistakable act of hate: bags of medical waste, including soiled bedsheets, used gloves, and human feces, scattered across their driveway near a large sign advertising their “Gardening Gays Farm.” Police are investigating the matter.
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Gardening Gays Farm, owned by Kevin Graham, 44, and his husband, Dragan Kurbalija, 47, is situated along U.S. 301 in King George County, a conservative enclave located about halfway between Richmond and Washington, D.C. The 27-acre property, which the couple bought four years ago, has become a cornerstone of the local agritourism economy and an unlikely symbol of queer visibility in rural America.
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Gardening Gays Farm
“It’s medical waste that is strewn all the way across the entrance of our farm,” Graham told The Advocate. “There are bedsheets that have human feces and urine on them. You can smell the human waste while you’re out there standing near it.”
He said this wasn’t the first time someone had targeted their property. Two weeks earlier, fast-food trash had been dumped at the gate. Deputies from the King George County Sheriff’s Office responded to both incidents and, this week, called in the Virginia Department of Transportation to handle cleanup due to the biohazard risk, Graham said.
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“It does not appear to be an accident,” Graham added. “You look up and down the roadway, and everywhere else is completely clear. The trash is only at our entrance.”
Gardening Gays Farm
While the couple said they have experienced overwhelming kindness from neighbors, the escalation and its proximity to a politically charged night carried a different weight. “We don’t lean into or talk politics with anybody,” Graham said. “But the fact that this happens after an election day, with what took place here in Virginia last night, really rubs you the wrong way even more than it would’ve on any other regular Wednesday.”
The episode unfolded against a backdrop of sharp political contrasts. Governor-elect Spanberger’s double-digit statewide victory — roughly 57.5 percent to outgoing Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears’s 42.3 percent — capped a Democratic sweep that also secured the lieutenant governorship and attorney general’s office. However, in King George County, Earle-Sears carried the night by a wide margin, with 59.54 percent to Spanberger’s 40.29 percent, according to Virginia Department of Elections data.
Gardening Gays Farm
In a social media video after the dumping, Graham said, “People often ask, Why are we Gardening Gays? This is who we are — to put on notice with who we are. When you come through our gates, when you come in to do business with us, we treat everybody as an individual, as a human being. When we moved into this community four years ago, we came, pulled up our boots, and got right to work, providing a safe space, providing a service, providing something that we thought this community needed and wanted. None of this is ever going to stop us from what we’re doing, but if you are the person who did this, understand this: it is disgusting, and we do not tolerate any type of act like this, anything at all. Everybody who walks through this gate is treated the same with love, human decency, and respect, and we expect the same thing as well.”
Gardening Gays Farm
That political divide contrasts with the couple’s success in bridging cultural ones. Their farm has become a gathering place for locals and visitors alike, offering year-round eggs, seasonal produce, and pasture-raised meats, including lamb and chicken. Their orchard is home to hundreds of fruit trees, from peaches and pears to figs and pomegranates, and their flock of ducks patrols the grounds for pests. Inside their farm store, shelves are lined with homemade jams and sauces, local honey, handcrafted candles, and goods from other small Virginia artisans. For many in the area, Gardening Gays Farm has become as much a community hub as a business.
Their farm store, flower gardens, and community events have made them well-known locally, and earlier this year, residents voted Gardening Gays Farm the county’s Overall Best Business, Best Family-Owned Business, and Best Agricultural Business.
Gardening Gays Farm
Kurbalija said the waste appeared to have been intentionally placed. “Nobody puts human feces in a regular trash bag and drives it on the back of a truck to the dump,” he told The Advocate. “It definitely feels personal.” Kurbalija and Graham said they would invest in new security measures, including additional cameras, following the discovery on Wednesday morning.
Gardening Gays Farm
Still, the couple insists this won’t alter how they live or how they welcome others.
“Our community here supports us,” Graham said. “They have our back, and there are people in this town who speak up for us when we’re not in the room.”
Gardening Gays Farm
The Advocate contacted the King George County Sheriff’s Office for comment, but the agency’s public information officer did not immediately respond.
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