Woman Asks Neighbors to Stop Picking Fruit From Her Trees: 'My Garden Is Precious to Me'

If you're an avid gardener, you know the hours of work that go into tending to your crops. This is especially true if you're a grower of fruit trees, which take years to reach maturity and produce fruit, and that's only if you care for them the right way.

While fruit trees typically yield enough produce to share with friends and family, the last thing you want is for people to take the fruit from your trees without asking. One Redditor claimed this is happening to her with a family in their neighborhood.

In the post, the woman shared that their front yard is filled with flowers and fruit trees and that many people in the neighborhood stop by to admire her garden. When passersby ask for fruit, she is willing to share but prefers to pick the fruit herself. "In the past when I've said yes to pickers I've come home to totally stripped trees so I rarely say yes, and instead I give the fruit out on my terms," she wrote.

The Redditor claims that there is one family in their neighborhood who especially loves the fruit trees and often tells her that she has more than she can use. "This isn't actually true because I do canning and also grow fruit specifically with the intention of donating to my kids' school and to food banks," she wrote.

One day, the family asked if their daughter could pick fruit from the trees herself, which the Redditor allowed her to do. But since then, the Redditor claims that the family lets their daughter take fruit from the trees whenever she wants. "I don't mind sharing but my garden is precious to me and I feel sharing is my choice," she wrote.

Recently, the Redditor stopped the family when they were picking fruit from the trees and requested that they ask for permission first. The father and mother got upset, saying that the fruit "is free" and that the owner is being "greedy." The Redditor concluded the post by asking if it was rude of them to ask the family to stop picking from their fruit trees.

Hundreds of people flooded the comment section, and an overwhelming majority are on the side of the Redditor. One person commented, "They took advantage of your kindness and are setting a bad example for their child. It's one thing if they were apologetic when you called them out but they dug their heels in and made you look like the bad guy when it's your fruit and flowers."

Another person pointed out the expenses that go into cultivating fruit trees. "It's also not 'free,' it took your (or someone's) initial cost of the plants, fertilizer and treatments, water, plus the time pruning, weeding, etc." they wrote. The Redditor commented back, "It was me. The land was bare when I moved in years ago. That's part of why I'm so protective of everything."