They say gardens grow more than food — they grow peace, patience, healing.

But when people keep stealing from yours?

You grow defiance.

My name is Mara. I grow vegetables to feed my family — not to impress neighbors or stock someone else’s feel-good pantry. Every tomato we grow is one we don’t have to buy. Every cucumber is a little less worry about rent.

I couldn’t afford a tall fence, just a low bunny barrier and signs that said: PRIVATE PROPERTY. DO NOT TOUCH.

They ignored it.

It started with a missing cucumber. Then radishes. Then a woman lifting her toddler into my garden to pick tomatoes for fun. My tomatoes. For our dinner.

I added more signs. A second fence. A tarp. People still climbed over.

One man, Bluetooth in ear, said he was taking cherry tomatoes for his wife’s anniversary salad. Teenagers came next — trampling spinach, littering soda cans. Laughing.

None of them had planted a single seed. But they felt entitled to the harvest.

They didn’t see backaches, sunburns, or the meals I stretched from every bulb.

This wasn’t a community garden.

It was survival.

And I was done being silent.