A few years ago, I decided I wanted to grow a vegetable garden. I already had an assortment of flowering plants, a couple of nice citrus tree, and even some beautiful roses, but I wanted the satisfaction of growing plants that produce food items. Maybe it was that part I inherited from my grandfather, who at 80, had a three-acre garden he cared for by hand or maybe it’s simply the joy in watching plants grow from seeds, but from that year on, I’ve had a garden. I wish I could say it’s always been successful, but one year, thanks to some new neighbors, I ended up living a gardener’s nightmare.
It started plainly enough. As usual, I started with seed trays in February under lights in my garage. February is also my birthday month, so my family gives me gift cards to Lowes to buy seeds and gardening supplies. I was ecstatic to be able to get seeds planted already and to have a new little greenhouse that my husband had already put together and wired with lights.
By early March, I transplanted 6-8 inch plants into containers and they were growing well. Both pepper and tomato plants were green, healthy and putting on new growth at a good rate. By the end of March, most of the plants stood about three feet tall and were covered in blooms and small tomatoes and peppers. It looked like it was going to be my best crop yet which meant plenty of veggies for us and even more to share with our neighbors in our cul-de-sac.
April rolled around and the strangest thing happened and did so in just a few days! The pepper plant leaves started to curl, thicken and turn a darker green. The tomato plants suddenly started growing taller and thinner, but the trunks of the plants got thick and almost bark-like, then began to rot away. The tomatoes that were already formed on the vines didn’t grow any bigger, but started to ripen and every time a new bloom appeared it quickly shriveled and died. I had two dozen four-foot tall tomato plants and 17 pepper plants showing this weird damage. It made no sense. My garden had gone from gorgeous to grotesque almost overnight. I was heart-broken.
Through teary eyes (yep, I was upset enough to cry), I noticed a small tree in the yard next door that bordered our fence. Its leaves were curling and most had already turned brown. I stood up on the block border of a flowerbed, looked over our fence, and was shocked to observe our new neighbors’ dead, brown yard. This was the source of my problem! A young couple had bought the small house next door and had carelessly broadcast-sprayed everything on their lot with herbicide. It had killed every plant in their yard, including their landscaping, and overspray had damaged every plant in my garden and even some of my flowers and shrubs. I was devastated.
When I spoke to one of my other neighbors about my damaged garden, she informed me that she had seen the husband standing in his backyard spraying something a few days prior, so we confronted them about what they had used. It was a chemical called 2,4-D, but they denied that it would have caused the damage. I did some research on 2,4-D and was shocked to find that not only does it cause extensive damage to plants, tomatoes are often affected the worst. And to make matters even worse, this chemical has been linked to cancer! He exposed his own year old child, his pregnant wife, us and our three children, and the neighbors on the other side of him with three kids of their own to a cancer causing chemical! We were livid, but our only recourse was to take them to small claims court for the damage they’ve caused to the plants. At the time, we were strongly considering that option and even consider reporting them to anyone who could do something about it.
However, my husband wasn’t going to let me mope all summer, so for an early Mother ’s Day present, he bought some tomato and pepper plants about 8 inches tall and helped me start again. We were still going to be able to enjoy a harvest that year. It wouldn’t be as big, nor did I have the satisfaction of having grown my entire garden from seeds, but at least I could look at my backyard and see vegetables growing again.
And our new neighbors? They still had a yard full of weeds, and they managed to kill most of the new shrubs and flowers they replanted to replace the first ones they had killed. They were, by far, the worst neighbors we’ve had, from having a dog that dug up my front flower bed, to mowing and skinning up our front yard because she wanted her friends to think her yard was bigger than it actually was, to even trying to lure and trap our cats and then calling animal control to complain. (Yes, we have cats, but there were several strays that lived in the woods by this neighbor’s house that liked to visit their carport.) But I think the worst thing they did was after damaging my plants, they had the gall to tie balloons on OUR fence for their kid’s birthday party which tangled the ribbons in my NEW plants! We removed them and the man used the F-bomb towards my 11-year-old daughter! He then snarled at me, “You can kiss those tomato plants goodbye!” Lucky for me, my husband set that young idiot straight very quickly. But the best news? One day we came home to a “For Sale” sign in their front yard! Oh, glorious day! We now have much better neighbors and my garden is safe as well as our cats, our grass, and our ears!