Most of the time there are tomatoes enough to go around, and neighbors who grow them are happy, if not keen, to give them away.

In today’s story, next door neighbors have driveways that are almost right next to each other with a patch of dirt between them…until tomatoes start growing.

The controversy is over who owns the tomato plants, which are technically volunteers.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

Don’t touch the tomatoes? Okay, there will be none.

This happened to my mother recently.

For context, the neighbor and her have driveways that are side by side with a small patch of dirty/gravel and weeds between that is basically no-man’s-land and is just there.

It’s about a foot and a half wide, runs the length of the driveway and no one really takes care of it, leaving it as a border.

My mom also has plenty of tomatoes growing in the backyard, including cherry tomatoes that are a favorite of crows stealing and other birds.

Now this spot was a favorite for birds to drop the tomatoes or pick them apart because there were no dogs there while there were in the backyard or main yards–or at least that’s how my mom tells it.

The tomatoes are now growing in the front yard too.

Eventually the seeds sprout and there are small tomato plants starting to grow.

Noticing them, my mom begins to water them regularly as she waters her front yard plants as she has to walk by them with the hose anyways.

This leads to cherry tomato plants sprouting and becoming incredibly fruitful between the driveways.

After a while, they were disappearing and my mom figured it was a combination of the birds and the wife of the neighbor couple because she was home all day.

My mom didn’t care because these were just chance tomatoes, she had plenty in the backyard garden, and it was just nice to have something more than dirt and gravel between the driveways.

The neighbor didn’t want her mom eating the tomatoes.

All was dandy until my mom went to grab a few to snack on while working in the front yard and the woman next door confronted her.

She told my mother those were not her tomatoes and she needed to leave them alone.

The neighbor woman continued that the patch of dirt and gravel was on her property, not my mother’s (though our water meter was in it and ultimately it was likely a 50/50 split if you even cared to look, which when it was just nothing, no one cared to).

So rather than argue with her, my mom said it was fine and she will leave them alone.

A few weeks later they had started to dry up and die without the frequent watering from my mom, eventually ending in the dirt and gravel patch becoming just that again.

It’s ridiculous that the neighbor was so upset about the person who took care of the tomatoes eating the tomatoes.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted…

Here’s a very different story about a tomato plant.

This reader likes how the story turned out.

Another person wonders why the neighbor is so mean.

Seriously, how did the neighbor think the tomatoes got there?

Here’s a joke…I think!

It’s really too bad to just let the tomato plants die, but there was really no other option.

At least, not when you have a neighbor like that.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.