You Grow Girl™

I recently discovered a sizeable patch of land off of my apartment's parking lot. At one point it definetly was a garden, there are raised beds beneath the layers of weeds and dandelions. I also noticed (with complete joy!) that there were quite a few scallions growing. The raised beds are not the sandbox looking ones, but rather heaps of earth formed into "burial" (to many horror movies) mounds. There is even a substantial black composter machine/bin thingy hiding behind an evergreen! The nearest hose spicket is ten feet away! It is in a super sunny location, with not a lot of trees directly around it. Quite the ideal garden spot!

I hestitate to do anything with it though. There is a trend in my neighborhood to take things of beauty and hard work and destroy them. And I don't necessarily blame the little kids, it's more like punk-a** teenagers and embittered adults. The plot is quite a ways off the street, and there is a parking lot that blocks the view. I don't think anyone would actually wander off the street and do anything; because there is a parking lot full of cars that have never been broken into or vandalized, on the other hand, vandalizing a car and yanking up a plant are two different things in some people's minds. I'm also concerned about some of my neighbors. On the whole, they're lovely people, there are, however some real dirt-bags that really annoy me and get under my skin. These are the people I could see turning the garden into their own personal produce aisle/flower shop. I can see the police report now: small woman attacks unruly old man with garden spade.

view from the street

Am I a Bad person? A selfish person? I am not against sharing the land, I just don't want to invest time, money, and love into something that could potentially drive me up the GD wall. I mean, I have no idea how to even go about fixing up that land, getting it planted etc. I would have to do a lot of research to even get it to a growable point, and then to have it taken advantage of by rude neighbors?! That would make me insane.

I do think it would be really great to grow my own watermelon though... and I don't think the 3rd floor"death ledge" could support a melon farm.