Pexels/Reddit
The whole point of a community garden is having the pleasure of taking care of your own plot. So it’s hard to believe someone would assume it’s about delegating the task.
Well, a lady did, and a gardener shares how they broke the news to her that she would lose her plot if she didn’t plant anything in it herself soon.
Let’s read the whole story and see how things worked out.
In my area, we have a community garden that is run by volunteers, including me. It’s pretty standard community garden rules.
At the start of the season, you get an assigned plot and pay, you plant things there, and take care of your little garden area.
If you don’t plant, or don’t care for your plot, you lose it to the next person on the waiting list.
It’s the first thing of its kind in our area, and there is a pretty long waiting list.
Because our garden is run by unpaid volunteers, we have been somewhat slow to contact people whose plots have not been planted.
We were almost two months into the season before I emailed the few errant people for the first time.
But not everyone got the message.
Almost everyone responded immediately.
There was just one empty plot that remained empty after another few weeks of emails, I actually called the number of the lady who the plot was assigned to.
I will call this lady ‘Not-A-Gardener’ or NAG for short.
NAG was SHOCKED to hear that she was in danger of losing her plot, and furious. I get it, maybe the emails weren’t received, one of us should have called right away.
She kept demanding to talk to the person in charge and kept asking about her vegetables and who was at fault for this negligence.
I apologized again and just let her know that she needed to come and plant soon or give the plot up.
How dare she suggest she take care of her plot?
I got off the phone as quickly as possible because I did not want to deal with her.
I had the pleasure of meeting NAG the following weekend when I was at the garden with my two little kids.
NAG marched over to me and with no introduction immediately started in again about the negligence and how could we be so unprofessional and where were her vegetables.
She was puffy and angry, and very very rude.
She wouldn’t let me finish a sentence and was trying to tell me she was going to get me fired from my volunteer garden position.
At this point, they needed to get on the same page.
I was trying to calm her down, but she wouldn’t let me get a few words into it before she interrupted me.
Finally, to get her away from my kids, I said let’s go and see your plot!
We walked over to the area where her plot was, and it was very clear that it was the only neglected plot in the whole garden.
The other plots have many plants already growing big, you can see peppers and tomatoes starting to be ready, cucumbers climbing all over the place, and a huge variety of greens and herbs.
NAG’s plot is dirt and grass.
But she thought it was their fault.
NAG basically stops dead in her tracks, sputters a bit, and then her whole tone changes.
She went from being angry to wailing and crying about how we could do this to her.
How could we treat her like this, what had she done to us, was it because she was new? Because she was American? Poor her! She deserved better!
What about her vegetables, she really needed her vegetables! She gets a little hysterical and starts to point out plots that are grown and have vegetables, and demands those.
It wasn’t exactly a civilized conversation.
She even went as far as to try and grab a green tomato from the neighboring plot but her heels slipped a little and she almost fell.
This set her off more and she is making quite a show so others in the garden come over to check on her.
As she wails on I suddenly realize what is happening.
NAG thought that the community garden meant that we were going to garden for her, and her fee at the start of the year is for us to plant her vegetables and care for her plot and harvest her veggies for her.
She has been sitting at home all this time expecting vegetable deliveries.
They had to explain how it works to her.
I should have figured it out sooner but all I wanted was not to deal with her so I wasn’t paying as much attention to her as I should have.
Also, the garden rules are pretty clear and when she paid she signed an agreement to the rules.
I explained it as nicely as I could to NAG. The plots are for HER to plant and grow, her small fee only covers the cost of the land and irrigation system.
If she wants the vegetables she’s been demanding she needs to plant them and care for them. It is her job, not ours.
She is the one who works on her plot, not us.
It takes a few tries to get this through and luckily, another volunteer is there to be with me as a backup.
She was offended.
She, of course, gets angry again about how no one told her but she signed the paperwork and it’s all very clear there.
I let her know there’s some money left, if she wants her fee back, we’ll give it to her and give her plot to the next person on the waiting list.
She yelled at me ‘That won’t be necessary’ which was funny because it’s a polite sentence, but she said it in the rudest way possible, and she stomps off out the gate and away.
But the story does have a happy ending.
The next weekend I go to the garden and Surprise! Her plot is planted! And it looks great.
She has a good variety and things are done neatly, there are little paver stones to walk on and tons of veggies.
It turns out, she has hired a professional gardener to do her community garden plot for her and deliver the veggies.
He’s the best guy, he’s very nice and polite and happy to talk about why the tomatoes are dying or how to add more potassium through compost.
He is willing to babysit other plots if people are on vacation, he’s super friendly, and it’s great to run into him.
He has set out seedlings for anyone to take a number of times as well.
I am so happy to not have to see NAG ever again and instead, we have an awesome new friend.
A chaotically wholesome story.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.
Food for thought.
Yup, that’s not exactly fair.
A community that serves her?
Hehe.
It’s never good to assume things.
That’s the first time I’ve heard of someone hiring a gardener to tend to their community garden plot.
But it’s nice that something good came out of a huge misunderstanding.
If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.
Comments are closed.