There's a large planter at the edge of our apartment building's parking lot, about 4 feet deep by... er... maybe 60 feet wide or so. It's been roughly divided up into patches about 6 feet wide, which some of the tenants have planted gardens in. (First come, first served for getting a garden patch.)

A pair of new tenants planted a garden in the patch next to ours. That patch used to be mine too (dammit), but I let it go fallow over the winter, they thought it was deserted, they took it over, and I didn't feel like making a big deal out of it and trying to force them to dig up what they'd planted or anything like that.

So I didn't feel terribly warm towards them to begin with. And as the summer has worn on, it's become clear that they have a hands-off policy towards their garden which extends to not doing a thing to keep their squash vine from overrunning my patch. I've been going down to the garden every few weeks and moving the squash plant back into their space — lift vine off my plants that it's crushing, move over two feet into their patch, drop.

The other day I was looking out the window at the planter and I realized something.

They only planted one squash plant.

Squash aren't self-pollinating. And whatever variety it is they planted, it's not the same kind as the zucchini plants at the other end of the planter.

They're not going to get a single squash off that vine.

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!



And despite being repeatedly overrun by the squash vine, my kale and rosemary are doing just fine. *snerk*