Employee refuses to share the first harvest with coworkers after 3 years of doing the workplace gardening without their help: ‘We get the first dibs’

Author image for Cata Holmes
Cata Holmes • Writer
Sep 3, 2026 9:45 AM EDT

How convenient to skip the gardening and show up just in time to claim the harvest…

Gardening is not only a hobby, but a talent. Not everyone is into it, and that's totally fine! Some people prefer building and creating beautiful gardens because greens and plants are energizing to them, while others might choose to exercise or whatever other activity they prefer. However, unlike other hobbies, gardening requires a lot of time and patience because the results are not seen until much later, so the people who are involved in gardening know this and learn to wait. 

The Reddit user u/Creative-Acadia4201shared that she and her coworker Jenny had been taking care of the office garden all by themselves. There were petitions in the past from other employees who wanted to remove it and do something else with the spot, but they were strong and promised to take care of it, so every week they had a gardening session. Slowly but surely, the garden started to bloom, and they even had some fruit and vegetables planted.

Three years later, Jenny was not able to go to the office for a while, and the OP had to take care of her mother, so she asked for someone to water the garden until one of them came back. Someone volunteered but told them that he would be taking the squash and the watermelon home, since they were ready to be harvested. Of course, both women were very upset: since they were the ones who did the gardening for all those years, they would be the ones taking all of that home. Logic, right?

This man was angry and decided to tell everyone at the office that these two ladies had prevented him from going to the garden, and made them look like selfish people. But I think the OP was correct: if you take care of something that demands a lot of attention and patience, as a garden does, it's not only appropriate but fair for the ones involved to be the ones harvesting and taking those products home.

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  • An employee tends the office garden after three years of gardening.
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    An employee tends the office garden after three years of gardening.

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  • So there's been ALOT of drama at work lately honestly with everyone but this particular situation has me feeling like I'm d ng on a lonely hill but I don't care. So for background there is a lovely community garden at my
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  • job but when I first got there it looked like CR P! There was only one coworker (Jenny) there that worked on it out of over 60 adults. We actually became very close because I noticed that she would be the only person working on the garden and
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  • A workplace community garden sits between office buildings.
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    A workplace community garden sits between office buildings.

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  • A worker plants flowers in the workplace garden after coworkers refuse to help with gardening and maintenance.
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    A worker plants flowers in the workplace garden after coworkers refuse to help with gardening and maintenance. 

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