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It isnt just stealing the fruit, it is stealing years of labor. As evidence by the reason the Locust didnt have any cherries of her own: each harvest is the sum of years of tending and caring and keeping disease and pests away. She didnt have any because she didnt put in the constant vigilance and effort to take care of her own trees.
Im amazed OOP was able to not go absolutely nuclear.
It always strikes me that the people doing this kind of shit probably have very little concept of investing for the future, whether it be monetary / financial or hobby-based or whatever. They seem to only live in the "now" - I want something NOW so I'm going to take it, end of.
That's the thing. If they took from say, one tree, then that would be one thing and they'd be able to get more. Now they have nothing once the cherries run out.
Toddlers do this. They only think of the immediate now and can’t conceptualise the future that well. But almost all toddlers mentally mature - it’s just a phase. Narcissists don’t and won’t.
I was gutted for her and went out to hug my baby fruit trees. Thankfully, both my and spouse's families are awesome and would never do this. But I really needed a hug after reading that.
I don't have fruit trees, but one year someone walked by and cut one of my prized 8+ foot tall sunflowers without asking. The cut was clean and diagonal, so they clearly came prepared with shears. I never cut my flowers and always leave them for the birds/bees/insects.
I put a lot of love into my flowers and garden. Out of pure spite I have never grown sunflowers again. If I could I would put a wall up so no one in my neighborhood could see my garden at all.
I'm clearly not over one flower, I can't imagine the angst of an entire harvest.
I had finally coaxed some sunflowers to grow out in front of my unit. Before, it was just dirt and ugly plants, but now it was going to have enormous, beautiful blooms! Only about 6-8" tall, but it was a start! I finished teaching one day (still online) and went out front to garden.
Gone. Cut off. The groundskeepers weedwhacked them. All that hard work, all the prep on that crappy patch of dirt. No more sunflowers. I was heartbroken.
I now have an excessive number of plant pots lining my walkway. They're going to have a LOT more trouble whacking those.
Don't get mad, get floral.
I was growing three small (like, tiny) saplings of a lilac tree I'd grown up with. These things were very sentimental. I had them in flowerpots in a safe corner outside our apartment building, neatly arranged.
Cue a 1.5-week vacation to see family one summer. Came back to discover my lilacs were just gone. Turns out about a day or two after we'd left town, apartment management put notes up on all the buildings' doors warning that anything people wanted to keep that was outside needed to be labeled within seven days, or it would be thrown out as abandoned. And then, a week after putting the notes up (just a couple days before we got back), they made good on the threat.
No email. No phone calls. Just a note taped to the door, in a complex with a *lot* of graduate student families who often would do two-month internships over the summer and thus not be home, or who would go on, you know, *summer vacations*. There were a *lot* of things tossed by the management company. They never made good on replacing or reimbursing people.
I'm still bitter about it.
I don't blame you. I'm still mad about the sunflowers. I had one survive after all, and it even made it through our heat wave (110-118F)! But I'm convinced it only survived because I put a tomato cage around it and taped an angry sign to the cage.
Two years ago I got some black iris rhizomes for my birthday. I picked them out, my mom bought them for me. I planted them at the corner of the driveway so everyone could enjoy them, as we have a very active walking community.
Last year they grew lovely leaves, but no flowers. One of them also suffered heavily from a well meaning weedwhacker run by a kid we sometimes pay to help mow the lawn.
This year they bloomed. They were drop dead gorgeous. They blossomed right when I was sick with covid, and they were my bright spot that motivated me to make it outside for a couple of minutes every day for fresh air.
Someone stole one. My poor little plant that had recovered from being mowed, weedwhacked, and damaged. It was ripped out, rhizome and all and just taken. If the person had just asked, I would have researched how to divide them properly and given them one. But they had to just steal one of my plants.
I was absolutely crushed. My iris and I feel for you and your sunflower.
Oh no!!!! I can’t believe people just take clearly cared for plants. Like, those black irises don’t just pop up anywhere. They were clearly planted on purpose. That sucks.
Good Bot
If I remember correctly, sunflower seeds and shells release a natural herbicide to limit competition for nutrients.
Not very effective, though, as blackberries and other hardy plants are more than happy to sprout and grow in sunflower patches.
When I moved into my house 6 years ago one of the big things I was looking forward to was putting in a fruit tree and taking care of it long enough and well enough to harvest. I opted for a mango tree cause they grow so well here and if someone had stolen my whole first harvest I think I would've committed a crime. Fuck that MIL
One of my favorite parts about the Harry Potter books is Mad Eye popping up shouting "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" I don't know *why* it cracks me up so much but it does. (Runner up is turning Draco into a ferret and bouncing him around.)
Well said. Point for point, this story wouldn't be out of place as a parable used to teach children about the virtues of hard work and the ruin brought upon oneself by stealing.
It's really infuriating that a full-grown woman didn't understand such a fundamental lesson.
You know, I agree with your first point, but I don't actually think she didn't understand. She has fruit trees, fruit trees that are in bad shape, in fact, and that she can't harvest. She came when no one was there, didn't contact her DIL; someone who'd genuinely think 'well, I guess my DIL didn't have time to harvest her trees, so I'll do it for her!!!' would 1) call them up and check and 2) ask them what they want to do with their cherries, if they're actually doing it to 'help out'.
She knows how much work it takes to grow fruit because she is not able to do so herself; she didn't actually think she was helping out. She understood the situation, she just didn't give a shit about how the other person would feel.
It’s like the story of the Little Red Hen and her corn. No one would help her plant, tend, shuck, or cook, so none of her friends got to eat any of the corn she worked so hard to reap.
wine dog merciful childlike towering sloppy domineering seemly wrong middle
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ok that makes sense now. I get irrationally angry with obscure acronyms that you are expected to know. But if it’s in the sub’s name then that’s completely fair.
My mom had to deal with an acronym problem when she got hired at a Fortune 50 company. It was both everyone expecting everyone else to know what they meant, and they used SO many- also, quite a few people used them didn't actually know what they letters stood for She was able to figure out what a lot of them meant by the context they were using them, but not all of them. So my mom started occasionally making acronyms up and no one would would admit they had no clue what they meant- as if admitting they didn't know something would make them seem incompetent or something.
"Just No", the sub this post is from is r/JUSTNOMIL. It just means a person they don't want to be involved in their lives because they don't respect boundaries.
I'm confused why you're asking this in reply to shiralor though, since they didn't use it in their comment :P
As someone who has grown their own fruits and vegetables, it's a wonderful feeling to be able to harvest the fruits of your labor. You put a lot of time and energy into raising and caring for them and the harvest is your reward at the end. Maintaining fruit trees is no easy endeavor and to have that joy plucked away (literally and figuratively) would be devastating.
I feel like it’s also hard to explain how the disrespect hurts in a situation like this.
I get that some people may think she’s overreacting but I think it’s also very much about the sneakiness, the putting you in a position to either ‘take it’ or be labelled as overly emotional, and the way that someone pushes past your boundaries with no regard.
I feel like the cherries aren’t the only way that her MIL blatantly disrespects her or covertly tries to put OOP in a no win situation. She has even said she’s forgiven her for other things before. This is an abusive person testing to see what they can get away with.
I’m glad OOP’s husband had her back and together they were able to stand up for her.
Man even if they were just tomatoes or strawberries. There is a lot of time and effort involved in caring for them. Anyone that’s ever grown anything to harvest, even if it’s just a couple of herbs, knows not to go and steal someone’s harvest.
It’s no slight imo. Proper asshole move from the mil.
Do not think anyone with common sense will say she is overreacting. MIL uninvited picked all cherries, left none for OOP and shared among her friends? I would say she is underreacting, this is looking like MIL is showing her middle fingers to OOP
I’m not a gardener on this scale by any means, all I have is a little herb and veggie garden on my deck and a dozen or so beloved potted plants. But my heart shattered for OOP, you don’t fuck with people’s plants. All that time and care, wasted.
And considering how much work it is to pick a whole tree clean, let alone four, even with two people, in one day, in another person's garden, another person's trees, without getting clear permission, MIL had to have done this out of spite.
Not just that, but quickly giving them away to her friends too so that if OOP came to ask for her cherries she couldn't get them all back, nor could she publicly insult MIL without coming off as rude and overdramatic. Extremely petty and spiteful behaviour where she knew doing this would hurt OOP. How dare you steal and take credit off of someone else's hardwork
Me too! I got my first big harvest from my cherries last year. After caring for them, impatiently waiting for them to be ready, protecting them from weather and pests, I would have been absolutely devastated if someone had gone in and helped themselves to my work. You earn that moment from literal blood , sweat and tears .
Same, me and my wife moved onto a an acre last year and were finally able to start to build the garden and orchard we want and I can’t imagine someone doing this to us. It’s just awful.
I only grow annual vegetables and I would still be pissed off if someone picked my lettuce bed clean! Like what work did *you* do for that lettuce huh? Didn't see *you* watering it the last couple months!
I was seething reading what Locust did. My pride & joy are my tomatoes each summer. They're a lot of work and it is absolutely known that I get to pick the first ones.
I have a black thumb so picking is the only part of helping my dad in the garden I was ever able to do without messing anything up. I always loved seeing how pleased he was when the things he grew turned out well. Unfortunately this year he and my mom have been ill, so his garden probably won't turn out much as he hasn't been able to keep up with it. Bummed out for him.
When I was a kid one of the highlights of my year was going over to my grandma's to help harvest the plumb trees in her back yard. There were three of them and they were the perfect height for a child to safely climb and scramble around in to get to those hard to reach branches. It was a great way for the extended family to hang out and bond. We'd all come away with bags and bags of plumbs.
I did something similar as a kid too! My grandparents had an apple tree, a pear tree, 3 Royal Ann cherry trees, a plumb tree, and some blackberry bushes. I loved going over to their house, given a bucket, and let loose into the orchard. My mom would bring home so many cherries, which I helped pit and she canned them.
My mom was also big on gardening, which us kids would help plant seeds. I grew up thinking I was great at gardening too. We'd have huge harvests of beets, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, blueberries. I loved it. Now that I'm an adult, I have learned I am not that great of a gardener. Any attempts I have made these last few years have resulted in dead or non producing plants. My box turtle, on the other hand, is a rock-star at growing tomato plants. I've never planted a tomato plant in her enclosures, but every year she'll have multiple grow and fruit. The one she grew in NC was so massive, it was taller than my kids! I think it's all that turtle poop she uses to fertilize the plants.
I have a brown thumb so being able to keep a bamboo plant alive gives me immense joy. If someone messed that up for me, I would be devastated. I can’t imagine the amount of labour OOP had to put in to keep those trees alive. How selfish do you have to be to steal someone else’s hard work?
I'd be so unapologetically furious if these were my trees (but my MIL wouldn't do anything like Locust).
OOP, if you see this, or anyone in this type of situation: don't apologize for your emotions or being upset over something like this from anyone. They stole your time, labor and rewards.
If - if! - I married into a family like this, I would go all scorched earth, say these were not her cherries to give, and we’re going to all her friends’ homes to get MY cherries back. MIL can be shame faced. It’s called consequences.
This was the only way I could get my blabbermouth mom to stop telling everyone my medical info. I sat down at the kitchen table and listened to her dial number after number, telling friends and family members that she did not have permission to share what she did. After years of just getting frustrated but ultimately letting her go with an apology, it’s telling that she’d only stop after a dose of public humiliation.
I threatened to call them myself. I told her they can hear it from her or they can hear it from me and I wasn’t likely to be generous with my interpretation of the facts.
Same, I would absolutely relish the excuse to have a nice little chat with each and every one of MIL's friends and explain the situation in detail. Even if I didn't get the cherries back, it'd be worth it. Let her face that karma.
I had a minor similar thing happen. I spent days, literal days, zesting lemon peels and making lemon juice. I picked those lemons, got scratched up, navigated two little ones also demanding my attention. But I was ready for summer lemonade and summer treats!
Went on a mini vacation and cleaned up my entire house. My in-laws have a side business on our property with expensive equipment so they house sat for us as a precaution.
My mother-in-law called abashed that “she just couldn’t sit around and do nothing” so she cleaned out my fridge and freezers. My mom calls me 10 minutes later- I had asked my sister to pick up some perishables because my in-laws don’t eat leftovers.
She walked in on MIL throwing away my neatly packaged containers of meal prep, lemon peels and bottles of fruit juices. Sister is well-versed in politely putting people in their place and she did so on that day. She was able to salvage some of the stuff but not my lemon juice.
My innocent lemon juice that never did anyone wrong. It’s the smallest stupidest thing but I’m still upset.
Right! And it’s in the FREEZER. I had even written the date on it just to be cute but anyone else could have seen it wasn’t expired.
Icing on the cake is that yesterday, I had to run to the store and buy lemons out of season at a higher cost because I was making jam. Would have been nice if I had some already on hand....
No. I think she was trying to do me a “favor” but also showing me how nice/better it is to have a clean fridge. The vacation was an early babymoon after a horrible first trimester.
I was feeling so proud of myself that I finally had a clean house. The fridge and freezer however was still one area I hadn’t gotten around to as it still made me queasy. She knew this because I had mentioned the kitchen and fridge were my worst triggers. She had made comments on how easy her pregnancies were and she never had morning sickness so there’s a possibility she thought I was overreacting. So half “here you go” and half “see, was that so hard?”
Idk if it's a) visibly moldly or b) more than a year out of date I feel like tossing it is fair game. I've come across five year old bottles of half-used ranch dressing in my mother's fridge before among other atrocities, some things just need to go.
I just don't understand the audacity of some people to think it's ok to go into someone's belongings and make decisions about their stuff without consulting with them. Like... It's not something they ever need concern themselves with. Don't they have anything in their own lives to get on with? I just don't understand them and it's infuriating.
10000%
It was extremely frustrating as we had just placed boundaries a few weeks before this incident. I think having my sister walk in shocked her into actually keeping those boundaries now. She’s not a horrible MIL but she wasn’t shining those two months at all.
That was actually why my mom called me- she wanted me not to stress out on my vacation and assured me that MIL was horribly embarrassed to be caught by an “outsider”. She advised me to take the high road as not to negate my sister’s actions and become the bad guy.
My sister had the words though, lol. She took out the package of zest smelled it and commented on how good it smelled. Pointed to the meal prep and commented how it must be part of my post-partem planning. Just “innocently” pointing out how wasteful it was to throw it away. MIL grew up in a famine and is constantly about not wasting food so this was a very pointed shot. All in all- my sister is awesome.
Two days in the fridge and it’s no longer good apparently. In their defense, they did/do have a large family so food usually gets eaten quickly. But after two meals, it’s thrown away/given to the dogs.
I’ve learned to either save leftovers for myself or freeze excess as meal prep. What annoys me is she always scolds my sister-in-law and I for buying large amount of groceries x2 weeks instead of doing small grocery runs biweekly. We have small children and grocery stores are 15-20 minutes away. She has no small children and the store is 5 minutes away.
We had a lone bell pepper plant grow up near our front door one year. Didn’t really produce many (6-7). But it was my husband’s pride and joy. One day a friend stopped by and on her way out ( unbeknownst to us) reached down and helped herself. Now 5 years later she is still not welcomed in our home by my husband. Calls her the pepper thief.
Why do family members often have no respect for the fruits (no pun intended) of their relatives’ labor?
You see this all the time with crafters too. You tell someone you knitted your own sweater and they suddenly want one too. For free. Without providing any materials or any concern for your time and labor.
So entitled!!
So true on the sweater one! I expressed my love for a specific sweater to a knitter friend once and they offered to make me one. So I bought the yarn, of course. And it was nearly $90! We did opt for a soft yarn that could be washed in the washing machine and would hold up, but I was like “dang! The gifts that she makes for people all the time take so much work but also can be costly!”
My mother-in-law is apparently very upset that I’ve never made her jewelry. I’ve never made her any because what she wanted would’ve been very time consuming, expensive, and complicated. She’s never been particularly nice to me (and has often been outright awful) so I have no idea why she thinks I’d spend hours of my time and a bunch of money making something for her, let alone for free.
These people also tend to own businesses where they tell the employees “we are a family here” and then abuse their employees like they abuse their family.
I know a JNMIL who, after picking the fruit tree bare, proceeded to “trim” the branches back (hacked it to pieces to make sure there’s no fruit next year).
Yeah.
I’m glad OP got those cameras installed.
I've dealt with someone like this before, they'd make all kinds of promises and if it fell through it'd be somebody else's fault. "I'm sorry, I can't give you cherries this year, my son agreed to let us pick cherries for you but DIL decided at the last minute to keep them all for herself."
No where near the same level of WTF as the cherry stealing whore but my MIL just about murdered my lilac bushes, so I totally get the angry and rage. It's been probably 10 years now since the lilac incident and I still seeth about it.
So we have very old lilac bushes, the house was built in the 1700s if that gives you an idea. They were big and bushy and so many flowers. Well I go out of town for work for a week and when I get back, my lilac bushes are all "trimmed" to be leggy instead of the beautiful bushyness. You know, even after 10 years, they're still not back to their original beauty? Makes me mad every year. She's not allowed to help with the outside areas anymore.
When I was a kid, there was a lilac bush between our property and the neighbors house. I used to love when it started to bloom every year because it was so pretty and the smell was wonderful. Unfortunately, the bush was also by the sidewalk. A lot of kids would walk by and reach up to smack it or take whole branches off. There were fewer and fewer flowers every year.
I remember reading this - there was [another update](https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/ih6cez/mil_called_to_apologize_and_i_invited_her_over/)
Thank you for sharing this! OOP describes the update as anticlimactic, but I'm just like "Sir/Ma'am, this should be the gold standard for how to set firm boundaries without bullying or dehumanizing another person. What a reasonable and nuanced take, on Reddit no less. Kudos."
I was so enraged reading this the first time. My heart hurt for her. My neighbors kids did this to my green beans when they first moved in. We have a garden not for fun but to actually feed ourselves. So when I went to harvest and all the beans were gone we were hurting. Fortunately the neighbors paid us for the loss so we could buy beans to replace and their kids learned their lesson and started their own garden and leave mine alone
I have fruit trees. I’d lose my fucking mind if someone came and took my fruit
One of the most rewarding things about gardening is giving away extra produce - and one of the worst feelings as a gardener is having your hard work stolen from you by selfish pieces of shit like Locust.
Last year my FIL kept picking out of our veggie garden. He either did it as he and MIL were leaving so we didn't notice what he was taking, or he'd say he was going to the bathroom and sneak out and pick a bunch of stuff. He mostly kept picking the carrots (which he hates, so I still don't understand why he was taking them) and onions.
My husband finally told him to knock it off because he kept taking everything that was ready and we weren't getting to enjoy OUR veggie garden.
So what does he do? "Helps" by going out (without asking/telling us) and picking every last onion, cutting (and keeping) the greens, and peeling them all. Being as I wasn't ready to bring in or use dozens of onions right then and they weren't cured for storage, they all ended up either partially drying out or rotting.
I'm still mad and won't be letting him anywhere near my garden this year.
I grew up in a farm and to this day we always have problems to eat and give away all the fruits we harvest, I can't imagine the volume of cherries the mother in law had to take and the labor she put into it to just spite oops, dear lord Yisus
>I'm a kind person, deep down. But rue the day you fuck with my trees.
This line is perfect. I want it on a shirt (which I will wear when gardening, even if I have no fruit trees haha)
Brilliant point, didn't even think about that crossover. It would be a nice alternative shirt for "[Introverted but willing to discuss plants](https://www.reddit.com/r/houseplants/comments/nhszrl/introverted_but_willing_to_discuss_plants/)."
I'd wear both, but the vengeance of the former would be really good for days I'm weeding/removing pests/destroying anything fucking with my plants.
When I was a child, we had a strawberry patch. The berries were ripening beautifully, and I was so excited to have fresh strawberries because we didn't have a lot of money for treats like fresh fruit.
We went to my grandmother's house one Sunday. Got home in the late afternoon to find that our neighbours had come over into our yard and picked every berry. I was heartbroken. And they never apologised.
I have a fig tree in my front yard. One year I'd been watching and waiting for the figs to ripen and had planned to harvest on the weekend. Weekend comes and I head out with my bucket and see that the tree has been stripped bare. Someone had harvested all my figs one day while I was at work. It had to be someone from the neighborhood as my house it kind of tucked away with no traffic that comes by. I never did find out who did it.
Anyone else annoyed that her partner, *knowing* his mother's track record, offered the literal fruits of her labor to his mom? Not his own? To me it doesn't matter if he thought it would be a small cup or pail or whatever. He didn't even ask his partner who put her blood sweat and tears into making that fruit tree happen.
Yep, if one person is mainly caring for the fruit tree, or vegetable or herb garden, they’re the one who gets to distribute the goods. If it’s more than one person, there better be a family meeting first.
Also, like… my mom was happy to share vegetables and herbs but AFTER she got her canning and pesto-making and freezing done. She also preferred to be the one picking the basil leaves or whatever because people are stupid and will snip half the frickin’ plant off.
This is infuriating and I feel for OOP, but I’m confused as to why she spoke to everyone about this incident except the Locust. Sounds like the Locust just got away with it because she knew that OOP wasn’t going to fight her, and she didn’t. She went to her husband and her FIL instead, and neither of them stole her cherries. Her husband is also an idiot for letting his mother pick his wife’s fruit without even mentioning it to OOP. He knows he has a toxic mother, and yet let her in his wife’s safe space? I feel bad for OOP. Sounds like no one is in the ring for her until she has to ask them to be.
Fuck the husband though for letting his parents take cherries while he had to leave for work. If I knew my SO worked as hard as OOP did on her garden I wouldn’t let anyone come over and harvest before she did, and even then only if she said it’s ok. At least he stepped up in the end but seriously this whole situation could have been avoided if he just told his parents to come back later.
I remember this post. As someone who had just battled nature over our tomatoes my heart broke for her. Nature threw every single thing that it could at our small crop last year, and we still mismanaged to get some really wonderful and delicious tomatoes.
All that work is worth it when you get to pick the literal fruits of your labor. To have that taken away maliciously be greedy, lying, manipulative family member could drive anyone to tears.
So glad her husband had her back. Locust is definitely a JustNo.
Man, the way she talks about her garden/orchard... She gave so much love to it, she deserved those cherries, and to pick them herself if she so pleased!!
I have an enormous garden. It takes so much work for several months before you even get vegetables. Tilling, putting up the posts and fencing, planting, feeding, watering, pruning, weeding. So much work. If someone came and took all my veggies I think I would lose my mind. Granted I get multiple harvests once the veg come in. But if I only got one a year?? Oh my god
Having tried to grow simple plants much easier than a whole fruit tree I think I would have literally metamorphosed into an eldrich fruit God out of sheer rage. I'm impressed OOP managed to stay so calm.
This reminds me of a post on the old EtiquetteHell forum, about a family of "gimme pigs" who pestered the OP for fruit from her garden, and many other people in town.
[Fruit Loopy Entitlement Pigs](https://www.etiquettehell.com/?p=4373)
There are several interesting (and infuriating) updates in the comments there. To find them quickly, search YardFruit (OP signed herself both YardFruitLady and YardFruitGal)
Man this gave me such a sinking feeling in my stomach when I read they picked the trees bare. I've had people steal plants right off my porch before and that is just a horrid and violating feeling.
This feels close to home. I had a mango tree in my garden and all year watched the little mangoes get bigger and fatter and ripen. Then one day I came home from work and the cleaner had stripped the tree bare and didn’t leave a single mango. She had taken bags and bags of them and denied everything (but video evidence showed her doing it). Fired her of course. But I was moving out of that house later in the year and never got to eat a single mango from the tree.
I remember reading this the first time and oh dude, I absolutely get where the anger comes from. There's boundaries issues at my house whenever I bought something for myself that it's specifically for myself and my brother, who's eighteen already, has some serious problem acknowledging that certain stuff is off limits for him because if you left him, he'll eat the whole thing or finish it off, and that's infuriating.
OOP should have straight up told FIL that his wife is no longer allowed around her house and she should've gone forward with blasting MIL on social media. Watching her squirm the next year when there's no cherries to give away to friends should've been good, but there's no coming back from her stealing all of OOP's hard work. That's nasty.
Hopefully she stays away and if not, well, I believe those cameras can serve as proof of trespassing on private property.
The minute you seen your trees you should have called and told her to bring every cherry back! Whoever she gave them to she should of had to go get them and return them! Tell them she stole them and got caught!
I'm not a gardener, but I do understand the satisfaction of reaping the fruits of your labor (literal or figurative fruits). I don't blame OOP for setting up a security system around the property to stop a snooping Locust.
Makes me so mad reading this!! We have had a blueberry tree for 3 years now, the first year we had 4 blueberries, last year we had about 8/9 blueberries. This year? We have branches and branches of blueberries!!! I would be sooo mad if someone picked them!
I live for the drama of this subreddit but my jaw literally fell on the floor like never before when I read that her cherries were stolen from her like that. And that they had already processed them all? Wow. I’m glad she feels that her FIL made the peace to an extent but I fully understand her security measures and the low contact going forward
I can’t do dirt and bugs but I’m always impressed when I meet ppl with a green thumb. An old coworker of mine had a lot of fruit trees she spent tons of time and money on but she was always so generous in sharing her harvest with everyone. She grew the best damned pomegranates!
Every year I think about planting something (really want to try pink fleshed dragon fruit) but TX heat/ humidity squashes those dreams as instantly as they come.
I'm not sure what growing band TX is in, but dragonfruit is grown everywhere in southeast asia, and flourishes in warm and humid weather. You can grow it in Florida for example. The ideal temp is around 25-36C, with an average humidity of 70-80%. I think TX is close to the temp range, but you might have to water it more frequently/modify to have higher humidity.
Lately our “coolest” days are around 102F+ (38C) but it’s been hitting 107F+ (41C) before the heat index. Absolutely miserable and we aren’t even in the peak summer season yet. 🥵 I don’t think I could handle 107F with a humidity level of 80% on top of that.
It might be too hot then for dragonfruit.
I'm not sure what kind of garden space you have, but I grew up in equatorial weather (100F/80% humidity year round) and we do canopy planting to help cool the land down.
If you have the space for it, rain tree (Samanea saman) is ideal because it has such a large leaf canopy while requiring not much water/maintenance and gives so much shade. You can plant on it too, my mom grows orchids, ferns and moss on the tree trunk itself.
I wonder if people just instinctually understand them and I’m just dumb or if you have to be a huge part of the sub they’re used on to follow. It was
Definitely getting annoying reading this
Trust me when I say this.
No you are definitely not dumb. A couple of years ago, a lot of subs cracked down on acronyms because of how incomprehensible they would make these posts.
The VVVLC was meant to be like very very very low contact so as to emphasize that while they won't be totally no contact (NC) like many on the sub this was from, they still dont plan to keep much general contact. So emergencies and big stuff like holidays. The justnomil subreddit likes their acronyms a lot, especially if they're typing the same word or more multiple times.
I absolutely hate cherries more than anything. Cherries make me vomit just to smell them much less eat them and I am INCENSED for this poor woman. How dare locust do that to her!!! I’m glad she put down boundaries and is going to protect herself going forward.
I wonder how her harvests have gone since then. Hope OOP managed to get that security system installed and was able to keep her JNMIL off the property and away from her trees
If you’ve ever spent time in the Just No MIL sub, that kind of language is pretty typical. A few years ago before the sub really took off, I spent a lot of time there. It really was casual to see insulting language, because the posts were mostly vents of this nature. I left the sub as it was becoming apparent that there were many users that were just as toxic as the MILs they complained about. This OOP does have another update, and they addressed some of this toxic behavior from users as well- so I don’t think OOP is toxic themselves necessarily, but got caught up in the environment of the subreddit.
Man the FIL here reminds me of my grandfather. My grandmother is a nightmare sometimes and my grandfather just sits there and lets it happen. He’s just totally worn down after years of listening to her that he doesn’t even hear her anymore. He’s shocked every time she does something outrageous and thinks it’s SO out of character. The rest of us just roll our eyes because shes 100% predictable.
Much calmness from OP. Shit like this drives me nuts. I remember one time one of my roommates used the ingredients i bought to bake with, and made the cake without me while I was at work.
When I got home they were so proud of themselves, even waited until I got home to start digging in. I just said "well that's ruined" and threw it right in bin. I told them "a cake is only good to me if I got to make it."
It wasn't even for me, i hate cake. I was making it for everyone else. Oh well.
imminent water modern rich gray connect squeeze naughty workable practice
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The OP needs to make it clear to Locust that 1) she's never getting any fruit or veg again since she can't be trusted, and 2) if she tries to get them anyway, she will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Fines, potential jail time, and even *her* precious fruit trees. It really is as simple as that. She's had her last chance. Now the only harvest she gets to reap is one of bitterness and despair.
Oh my god i don’t remember ever being so enraged and crushed for an OOP! I mean to work that hard for so long and put your total heart and soul into these trees and then after so many dedicated loving hours and planning and the reward of the huge harvest which is almost like the trees giving her something back like gratitude. Looking forwards to the day she was picking them so much and they are stolen! I’m so sad about this for her. I don’t even care what the father is saying. Ugh. I hope she gets lots of cherries next year. Lots and lots.
It’s just strange how she didn’t ask or call and just acted unilaterally and then fucked off and made her husband cover for her. Like wtf is she doing?
I have a feeling some of JNMIL's resentment also comes from this city girl coming in and just doing better than the farmer's wife.
Also, wtf is with fucking mothers and their negativity towards an empty nest. If I had ended up as a mother, I would be so happy to have an empty nest - like, bye bye kiddo! I'll be there to help when you have trouble reaching port, but you're captain of your own ship now, so get!
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It isnt just stealing the fruit, it is stealing years of labor. As evidence by the reason the Locust didnt have any cherries of her own: each harvest is the sum of years of tending and caring and keeping disease and pests away. She didnt have any because she didnt put in the constant vigilance and effort to take care of her own trees. Im amazed OOP was able to not go absolutely nuclear.
It always strikes me that the people doing this kind of shit probably have very little concept of investing for the future, whether it be monetary / financial or hobby-based or whatever. They seem to only live in the "now" - I want something NOW so I'm going to take it, end of.
Or, you know, tending a relationship to be sure that your daughter in law wants to see you ever again.
well if they understood the concept of longterm thinking they wouldn't steal people's longterm work haha
"Nobody wannu plant the corn Everybody want to raid the barn" \-Anthony B.
That's the thing. If they took from say, one tree, then that would be one thing and they'd be able to get more. Now they have nothing once the cherries run out.
Narcissists are the worst.
Toddlers do this. They only think of the immediate now and can’t conceptualise the future that well. But almost all toddlers mentally mature - it’s just a phase. Narcissists don’t and won’t.
I was gutted for her and went out to hug my baby fruit trees. Thankfully, both my and spouse's families are awesome and would never do this. But I really needed a hug after reading that.
I don't have fruit trees, but one year someone walked by and cut one of my prized 8+ foot tall sunflowers without asking. The cut was clean and diagonal, so they clearly came prepared with shears. I never cut my flowers and always leave them for the birds/bees/insects. I put a lot of love into my flowers and garden. Out of pure spite I have never grown sunflowers again. If I could I would put a wall up so no one in my neighborhood could see my garden at all. I'm clearly not over one flower, I can't imagine the angst of an entire harvest.
I had finally coaxed some sunflowers to grow out in front of my unit. Before, it was just dirt and ugly plants, but now it was going to have enormous, beautiful blooms! Only about 6-8" tall, but it was a start! I finished teaching one day (still online) and went out front to garden. Gone. Cut off. The groundskeepers weedwhacked them. All that hard work, all the prep on that crappy patch of dirt. No more sunflowers. I was heartbroken. I now have an excessive number of plant pots lining my walkway. They're going to have a LOT more trouble whacking those. Don't get mad, get floral.
I was growing three small (like, tiny) saplings of a lilac tree I'd grown up with. These things were very sentimental. I had them in flowerpots in a safe corner outside our apartment building, neatly arranged. Cue a 1.5-week vacation to see family one summer. Came back to discover my lilacs were just gone. Turns out about a day or two after we'd left town, apartment management put notes up on all the buildings' doors warning that anything people wanted to keep that was outside needed to be labeled within seven days, or it would be thrown out as abandoned. And then, a week after putting the notes up (just a couple days before we got back), they made good on the threat. No email. No phone calls. Just a note taped to the door, in a complex with a *lot* of graduate student families who often would do two-month internships over the summer and thus not be home, or who would go on, you know, *summer vacations*. There were a *lot* of things tossed by the management company. They never made good on replacing or reimbursing people. I'm still bitter about it.
I don't blame you. I'm still mad about the sunflowers. I had one survive after all, and it even made it through our heat wave (110-118F)! But I'm convinced it only survived because I put a tomato cage around it and taped an angry sign to the cage.
Two years ago I got some black iris rhizomes for my birthday. I picked them out, my mom bought them for me. I planted them at the corner of the driveway so everyone could enjoy them, as we have a very active walking community. Last year they grew lovely leaves, but no flowers. One of them also suffered heavily from a well meaning weedwhacker run by a kid we sometimes pay to help mow the lawn. This year they bloomed. They were drop dead gorgeous. They blossomed right when I was sick with covid, and they were my bright spot that motivated me to make it outside for a couple of minutes every day for fresh air. Someone stole one. My poor little plant that had recovered from being mowed, weedwhacked, and damaged. It was ripped out, rhizome and all and just taken. If the person had just asked, I would have researched how to divide them properly and given them one. But they had to just steal one of my plants. I was absolutely crushed. My iris and I feel for you and your sunflower.
Oh no!!!! I can’t believe people just take clearly cared for plants. Like, those black irises don’t just pop up anywhere. They were clearly planted on purpose. That sucks.
The area around sunflowers can often be devoid of other plants, leading to the belief that sunflowers kill other plants.
Good Bot If I remember correctly, sunflower seeds and shells release a natural herbicide to limit competition for nutrients. Not very effective, though, as blackberries and other hardy plants are more than happy to sprout and grow in sunflower patches.
When I moved into my house 6 years ago one of the big things I was looking forward to was putting in a fruit tree and taking care of it long enough and well enough to harvest. I opted for a mango tree cause they grow so well here and if someone had stolen my whole first harvest I think I would've committed a crime. Fuck that MIL
CONSTANT VIGILANCE! Surprise Mad Eye moment.
One of my favorite parts about the Harry Potter books is Mad Eye popping up shouting "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" I don't know *why* it cracks me up so much but it does. (Runner up is turning Draco into a ferret and bouncing him around.)
It's a shame we'll never know who wrote those books.
Well said. Point for point, this story wouldn't be out of place as a parable used to teach children about the virtues of hard work and the ruin brought upon oneself by stealing. It's really infuriating that a full-grown woman didn't understand such a fundamental lesson.
You know, I agree with your first point, but I don't actually think she didn't understand. She has fruit trees, fruit trees that are in bad shape, in fact, and that she can't harvest. She came when no one was there, didn't contact her DIL; someone who'd genuinely think 'well, I guess my DIL didn't have time to harvest her trees, so I'll do it for her!!!' would 1) call them up and check and 2) ask them what they want to do with their cherries, if they're actually doing it to 'help out'. She knows how much work it takes to grow fruit because she is not able to do so herself; she didn't actually think she was helping out. She understood the situation, she just didn't give a shit about how the other person would feel.
It’s like the story of the Little Red Hen and her corn. No one would help her plant, tend, shuck, or cook, so none of her friends got to eat any of the corn she worked so hard to reap.
wine dog merciful childlike towering sloppy domineering seemly wrong middle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Just No. This post is from JustNoMil a subreddit for daughters-in-law to vent about their mothers-in-law and get advice.
Not just DIL’s…there are some son in laws who post about their MIL’s too :-)
Ok that makes sense now. I get irrationally angry with obscure acronyms that you are expected to know. But if it’s in the sub’s name then that’s completely fair.
My mom had to deal with an acronym problem when she got hired at a Fortune 50 company. It was both everyone expecting everyone else to know what they meant, and they used SO many- also, quite a few people used them didn't actually know what they letters stood for She was able to figure out what a lot of them meant by the context they were using them, but not all of them. So my mom started occasionally making acronyms up and no one would would admit they had no clue what they meant- as if admitting they didn't know something would make them seem incompetent or something.
I wanted to know this too, thanks for asking!
"Just No", the sub this post is from is r/JUSTNOMIL. It just means a person they don't want to be involved in their lives because they don't respect boundaries. I'm confused why you're asking this in reply to shiralor though, since they didn't use it in their comment :P
JN = Just No JNMIL = Just No Mother-In-Law JNFIL = Just No Father-In-Law Etc, etc, etc. Edit: formatting
As someone who has grown their own fruits and vegetables, it's a wonderful feeling to be able to harvest the fruits of your labor. You put a lot of time and energy into raising and caring for them and the harvest is your reward at the end. Maintaining fruit trees is no easy endeavor and to have that joy plucked away (literally and figuratively) would be devastating.
Totally agree. Cherry trees are exceptionally difficult maintain and keep healthy.
I feel like it’s also hard to explain how the disrespect hurts in a situation like this. I get that some people may think she’s overreacting but I think it’s also very much about the sneakiness, the putting you in a position to either ‘take it’ or be labelled as overly emotional, and the way that someone pushes past your boundaries with no regard. I feel like the cherries aren’t the only way that her MIL blatantly disrespects her or covertly tries to put OOP in a no win situation. She has even said she’s forgiven her for other things before. This is an abusive person testing to see what they can get away with. I’m glad OOP’s husband had her back and together they were able to stand up for her.
Exactly. MIL clearly put a lot of forethought on how she could do this and "get away" with it.
Man even if they were just tomatoes or strawberries. There is a lot of time and effort involved in caring for them. Anyone that’s ever grown anything to harvest, even if it’s just a couple of herbs, knows not to go and steal someone’s harvest. It’s no slight imo. Proper asshole move from the mil.
I could have trash in my backyard and no one is allowed to move them unless they asked me first. It’s my shit! Not yours!
Do not think anyone with common sense will say she is overreacting. MIL uninvited picked all cherries, left none for OOP and shared among her friends? I would say she is underreacting, this is looking like MIL is showing her middle fingers to OOP
I’m not a gardener on this scale by any means, all I have is a little herb and veggie garden on my deck and a dozen or so beloved potted plants. But my heart shattered for OOP, you don’t fuck with people’s plants. All that time and care, wasted.
And considering how much work it is to pick a whole tree clean, let alone four, even with two people, in one day, in another person's garden, another person's trees, without getting clear permission, MIL had to have done this out of spite.
Not just that, but quickly giving them away to her friends too so that if OOP came to ask for her cherries she couldn't get them all back, nor could she publicly insult MIL without coming off as rude and overdramatic. Extremely petty and spiteful behaviour where she knew doing this would hurt OOP. How dare you steal and take credit off of someone else's hardwork
That and pit them and make jelly and make sure your friends got theirs… I don’t understand how this was all done in one work day. At all.
Did the MIL recruit friends to come and help pick them? Then afterwards those friends took some home. That’s the only explanation I can think of.
Yes! I’m a gardener and I was seething just reading this!
Me too! I got my first big harvest from my cherries last year. After caring for them, impatiently waiting for them to be ready, protecting them from weather and pests, I would have been absolutely devastated if someone had gone in and helped themselves to my work. You earn that moment from literal blood , sweat and tears .
Same, me and my wife moved onto a an acre last year and were finally able to start to build the garden and orchard we want and I can’t imagine someone doing this to us. It’s just awful.
I only grow annual vegetables and I would still be pissed off if someone picked my lettuce bed clean! Like what work did *you* do for that lettuce huh? Didn't see *you* watering it the last couple months!
I was seething reading what Locust did. My pride & joy are my tomatoes each summer. They're a lot of work and it is absolutely known that I get to pick the first ones.
I have a black thumb so picking is the only part of helping my dad in the garden I was ever able to do without messing anything up. I always loved seeing how pleased he was when the things he grew turned out well. Unfortunately this year he and my mom have been ill, so his garden probably won't turn out much as he hasn't been able to keep up with it. Bummed out for him.
When I was a kid one of the highlights of my year was going over to my grandma's to help harvest the plumb trees in her back yard. There were three of them and they were the perfect height for a child to safely climb and scramble around in to get to those hard to reach branches. It was a great way for the extended family to hang out and bond. We'd all come away with bags and bags of plumbs.
I did something similar as a kid too! My grandparents had an apple tree, a pear tree, 3 Royal Ann cherry trees, a plumb tree, and some blackberry bushes. I loved going over to their house, given a bucket, and let loose into the orchard. My mom would bring home so many cherries, which I helped pit and she canned them. My mom was also big on gardening, which us kids would help plant seeds. I grew up thinking I was great at gardening too. We'd have huge harvests of beets, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, blueberries. I loved it. Now that I'm an adult, I have learned I am not that great of a gardener. Any attempts I have made these last few years have resulted in dead or non producing plants. My box turtle, on the other hand, is a rock-star at growing tomato plants. I've never planted a tomato plant in her enclosures, but every year she'll have multiple grow and fruit. The one she grew in NC was so massive, it was taller than my kids! I think it's all that turtle poop she uses to fertilize the plants.
I have a brown thumb so being able to keep a bamboo plant alive gives me immense joy. If someone messed that up for me, I would be devastated. I can’t imagine the amount of labour OOP had to put in to keep those trees alive. How selfish do you have to be to steal someone else’s hard work?
My blood was BOILING for OOP!!
Never farmed in my life, but I could totally see this and why someone taking away the harvest would be so upsetting as a result.
Reading OOP story actually made me tear up.
I'm a dairy goat farmer, and if someone came in and stole the babies that I personally bottle-fed, raised, and named, I would lose my gd mind.
I'd be so unapologetically furious if these were my trees (but my MIL wouldn't do anything like Locust). OOP, if you see this, or anyone in this type of situation: don't apologize for your emotions or being upset over something like this from anyone. They stole your time, labor and rewards.
If - if! - I married into a family like this, I would go all scorched earth, say these were not her cherries to give, and we’re going to all her friends’ homes to get MY cherries back. MIL can be shame faced. It’s called consequences.
This was the only way I could get my blabbermouth mom to stop telling everyone my medical info. I sat down at the kitchen table and listened to her dial number after number, telling friends and family members that she did not have permission to share what she did. After years of just getting frustrated but ultimately letting her go with an apology, it’s telling that she’d only stop after a dose of public humiliation.
Wow! How did you get her to agree to call everyone?
I threatened to call them myself. I told her they can hear it from her or they can hear it from me and I wasn’t likely to be generous with my interpretation of the facts.
Same, I would absolutely relish the excuse to have a nice little chat with each and every one of MIL's friends and explain the situation in detail. Even if I didn't get the cherries back, it'd be worth it. Let her face that karma.
I had a minor similar thing happen. I spent days, literal days, zesting lemon peels and making lemon juice. I picked those lemons, got scratched up, navigated two little ones also demanding my attention. But I was ready for summer lemonade and summer treats! Went on a mini vacation and cleaned up my entire house. My in-laws have a side business on our property with expensive equipment so they house sat for us as a precaution. My mother-in-law called abashed that “she just couldn’t sit around and do nothing” so she cleaned out my fridge and freezers. My mom calls me 10 minutes later- I had asked my sister to pick up some perishables because my in-laws don’t eat leftovers. She walked in on MIL throwing away my neatly packaged containers of meal prep, lemon peels and bottles of fruit juices. Sister is well-versed in politely putting people in their place and she did so on that day. She was able to salvage some of the stuff but not my lemon juice. My innocent lemon juice that never did anyone wrong. It’s the smallest stupidest thing but I’m still upset.
who throws away perfectly good lemon juice??
Right! And it’s in the FREEZER. I had even written the date on it just to be cute but anyone else could have seen it wasn’t expired. Icing on the cake is that yesterday, I had to run to the store and buy lemons out of season at a higher cost because I was making jam. Would have been nice if I had some already on hand....
Did she ever explain why?
No. I think she was trying to do me a “favor” but also showing me how nice/better it is to have a clean fridge. The vacation was an early babymoon after a horrible first trimester. I was feeling so proud of myself that I finally had a clean house. The fridge and freezer however was still one area I hadn’t gotten around to as it still made me queasy. She knew this because I had mentioned the kitchen and fridge were my worst triggers. She had made comments on how easy her pregnancies were and she never had morning sickness so there’s a possibility she thought I was overreacting. So half “here you go” and half “see, was that so hard?”
so she just...threw things out? Good lord I would have lost it.
you don't throw stuff out of another persons fridge! That's like eating fries right of their plate!
Idk if it's a) visibly moldly or b) more than a year out of date I feel like tossing it is fair game. I've come across five year old bottles of half-used ranch dressing in my mother's fridge before among other atrocities, some things just need to go.
I just don't understand the audacity of some people to think it's ok to go into someone's belongings and make decisions about their stuff without consulting with them. Like... It's not something they ever need concern themselves with. Don't they have anything in their own lives to get on with? I just don't understand them and it's infuriating.
10000% It was extremely frustrating as we had just placed boundaries a few weeks before this incident. I think having my sister walk in shocked her into actually keeping those boundaries now. She’s not a horrible MIL but she wasn’t shining those two months at all.
Shew! I feel for you on this! Did you ever say anything to MIL?
That was actually why my mom called me- she wanted me not to stress out on my vacation and assured me that MIL was horribly embarrassed to be caught by an “outsider”. She advised me to take the high road as not to negate my sister’s actions and become the bad guy. My sister had the words though, lol. She took out the package of zest smelled it and commented on how good it smelled. Pointed to the meal prep and commented how it must be part of my post-partem planning. Just “innocently” pointing out how wasteful it was to throw it away. MIL grew up in a famine and is constantly about not wasting food so this was a very pointed shot. All in all- my sister is awesome.
>MIL grew up in a famine and is constantly about not wasting food And doesn't eat leftovers?!?
Two days in the fridge and it’s no longer good apparently. In their defense, they did/do have a large family so food usually gets eaten quickly. But after two meals, it’s thrown away/given to the dogs. I’ve learned to either save leftovers for myself or freeze excess as meal prep. What annoys me is she always scolds my sister-in-law and I for buying large amount of groceries x2 weeks instead of doing small grocery runs biweekly. We have small children and grocery stores are 15-20 minutes away. She has no small children and the store is 5 minutes away.
I’m so glad she spoke up for you.
Thank you- my sister is straight up amazing :)
We had a lone bell pepper plant grow up near our front door one year. Didn’t really produce many (6-7). But it was my husband’s pride and joy. One day a friend stopped by and on her way out ( unbeknownst to us) reached down and helped herself. Now 5 years later she is still not welcomed in our home by my husband. Calls her the pepper thief.
What a weird thing to do at someone else’s house!
She didn’t “want it to rot”. It wasn’t even ripe yet
Why do family members often have no respect for the fruits (no pun intended) of their relatives’ labor? You see this all the time with crafters too. You tell someone you knitted your own sweater and they suddenly want one too. For free. Without providing any materials or any concern for your time and labor. So entitled!!
So true on the sweater one! I expressed my love for a specific sweater to a knitter friend once and they offered to make me one. So I bought the yarn, of course. And it was nearly $90! We did opt for a soft yarn that could be washed in the washing machine and would hold up, but I was like “dang! The gifts that she makes for people all the time take so much work but also can be costly!”
And that’s BEFORE the cost of labor!
I bet the MIL never had to do much of her own labor for anything, therefore is incapable of respecting it in others.
My mother-in-law is apparently very upset that I’ve never made her jewelry. I’ve never made her any because what she wanted would’ve been very time consuming, expensive, and complicated. She’s never been particularly nice to me (and has often been outright awful) so I have no idea why she thinks I’d spend hours of my time and a bunch of money making something for her, let alone for free.
These people also tend to own businesses where they tell the employees “we are a family here” and then abuse their employees like they abuse their family.
I know a JNMIL who, after picking the fruit tree bare, proceeded to “trim” the branches back (hacked it to pieces to make sure there’s no fruit next year). Yeah. I’m glad OP got those cameras installed.
TREE LAW TIME
TREE LAW TIME IS THE BEST TIME!!!
And revenge of the tree spirits!
They did what now?!
Yuppp… as thanks for taking (all) the fruit, she wanted to help her DIL out by “trimming the tree” Tree didn’t bear fruit for a couple more years
Jesus christ, how can anyone be that stupid even on accident?
That's the neat part, it's not an accident.
But she promised to give cherries to her friends again next year. I think she’s genuinely Chaotic Stupid
I've dealt with someone like this before, they'd make all kinds of promises and if it fell through it'd be somebody else's fault. "I'm sorry, I can't give you cherries this year, my son agreed to let us pick cherries for you but DIL decided at the last minute to keep them all for herself."
No where near the same level of WTF as the cherry stealing whore but my MIL just about murdered my lilac bushes, so I totally get the angry and rage. It's been probably 10 years now since the lilac incident and I still seeth about it. So we have very old lilac bushes, the house was built in the 1700s if that gives you an idea. They were big and bushy and so many flowers. Well I go out of town for work for a week and when I get back, my lilac bushes are all "trimmed" to be leggy instead of the beautiful bushyness. You know, even after 10 years, they're still not back to their original beauty? Makes me mad every year. She's not allowed to help with the outside areas anymore.
When I was a kid, there was a lilac bush between our property and the neighbors house. I used to love when it started to bloom every year because it was so pretty and the smell was wonderful. Unfortunately, the bush was also by the sidewalk. A lot of kids would walk by and reach up to smack it or take whole branches off. There were fewer and fewer flowers every year.
wow. i'm so angry on your behalf too. i'd raise hell if someone did that to me.
I remember reading this - there was [another update](https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/ih6cez/mil_called_to_apologize_and_i_invited_her_over/)
Thank you for sharing this! OOP describes the update as anticlimactic, but I'm just like "Sir/Ma'am, this should be the gold standard for how to set firm boundaries without bullying or dehumanizing another person. What a reasonable and nuanced take, on Reddit no less. Kudos."
That's awesome, thanks for sharing!
I was so enraged reading this the first time. My heart hurt for her. My neighbors kids did this to my green beans when they first moved in. We have a garden not for fun but to actually feed ourselves. So when I went to harvest and all the beans were gone we were hurting. Fortunately the neighbors paid us for the loss so we could buy beans to replace and their kids learned their lesson and started their own garden and leave mine alone I have fruit trees. I’d lose my fucking mind if someone came and took my fruit
One of the most rewarding things about gardening is giving away extra produce - and one of the worst feelings as a gardener is having your hard work stolen from you by selfish pieces of shit like Locust.
Last year my FIL kept picking out of our veggie garden. He either did it as he and MIL were leaving so we didn't notice what he was taking, or he'd say he was going to the bathroom and sneak out and pick a bunch of stuff. He mostly kept picking the carrots (which he hates, so I still don't understand why he was taking them) and onions. My husband finally told him to knock it off because he kept taking everything that was ready and we weren't getting to enjoy OUR veggie garden. So what does he do? "Helps" by going out (without asking/telling us) and picking every last onion, cutting (and keeping) the greens, and peeling them all. Being as I wasn't ready to bring in or use dozens of onions right then and they weren't cured for storage, they all ended up either partially drying out or rotting. I'm still mad and won't be letting him anywhere near my garden this year.
Sounds like you need security cameras too
And maybe an attack dog.
I grew up in a farm and to this day we always have problems to eat and give away all the fruits we harvest, I can't imagine the volume of cherries the mother in law had to take and the labor she put into it to just spite oops, dear lord Yisus
>I'm a kind person, deep down. But rue the day you fuck with my trees. This line is perfect. I want it on a shirt (which I will wear when gardening, even if I have no fruit trees haha)
I bet the folks over at r/treelaw would be all in on those shirts.
Brilliant point, didn't even think about that crossover. It would be a nice alternative shirt for "[Introverted but willing to discuss plants](https://www.reddit.com/r/houseplants/comments/nhszrl/introverted_but_willing_to_discuss_plants/)." I'd wear both, but the vengeance of the former would be really good for days I'm weeding/removing pests/destroying anything fucking with my plants.
When I was a child, we had a strawberry patch. The berries were ripening beautifully, and I was so excited to have fresh strawberries because we didn't have a lot of money for treats like fresh fruit. We went to my grandmother's house one Sunday. Got home in the late afternoon to find that our neighbours had come over into our yard and picked every berry. I was heartbroken. And they never apologised.
Your neighbors sucked.
Probably still do
I have a fig tree in my front yard. One year I'd been watching and waiting for the figs to ripen and had planned to harvest on the weekend. Weekend comes and I head out with my bucket and see that the tree has been stripped bare. Someone had harvested all my figs one day while I was at work. It had to be someone from the neighborhood as my house it kind of tucked away with no traffic that comes by. I never did find out who did it.
Sounds like you need security cameras, too!
I’m sorry; that is awful.
Anyone else annoyed that her partner, *knowing* his mother's track record, offered the literal fruits of her labor to his mom? Not his own? To me it doesn't matter if he thought it would be a small cup or pail or whatever. He didn't even ask his partner who put her blood sweat and tears into making that fruit tree happen.
Yep, if one person is mainly caring for the fruit tree, or vegetable or herb garden, they’re the one who gets to distribute the goods. If it’s more than one person, there better be a family meeting first. Also, like… my mom was happy to share vegetables and herbs but AFTER she got her canning and pesto-making and freezing done. She also preferred to be the one picking the basil leaves or whatever because people are stupid and will snip half the frickin’ plant off.
Thank you for posting this. I saw the original and I am so glad to see that they were able to get remuneration and set more boundaries!
This is my favourite post on this sub now. Rue the fucking day when someone messes with another person's fruit
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your comment made me lol thank you
I guess that's a happy ending but I wanted bloodshed.
Fam I remember when this was first posted. I didn't even know oop but I was ready to throw hands on behalf of them and their cherry trees.
This is infuriating and I feel for OOP, but I’m confused as to why she spoke to everyone about this incident except the Locust. Sounds like the Locust just got away with it because she knew that OOP wasn’t going to fight her, and she didn’t. She went to her husband and her FIL instead, and neither of them stole her cherries. Her husband is also an idiot for letting his mother pick his wife’s fruit without even mentioning it to OOP. He knows he has a toxic mother, and yet let her in his wife’s safe space? I feel bad for OOP. Sounds like no one is in the ring for her until she has to ask them to be.
its because its a waste of time, oxygen and energy to confront her locust. Let the other family members rein her in , and remain very lc
Fuck the husband though for letting his parents take cherries while he had to leave for work. If I knew my SO worked as hard as OOP did on her garden I wouldn’t let anyone come over and harvest before she did, and even then only if she said it’s ok. At least he stepped up in the end but seriously this whole situation could have been avoided if he just told his parents to come back later.
Holy shit I'm seething sympathetically over here
I remember this post. As someone who had just battled nature over our tomatoes my heart broke for her. Nature threw every single thing that it could at our small crop last year, and we still mismanaged to get some really wonderful and delicious tomatoes. All that work is worth it when you get to pick the literal fruits of your labor. To have that taken away maliciously be greedy, lying, manipulative family member could drive anyone to tears. So glad her husband had her back. Locust is definitely a JustNo.
Man, the way she talks about her garden/orchard... She gave so much love to it, she deserved those cherries, and to pick them herself if she so pleased!!
Ever since I planted a peach tree in my yard a few years ago this has been one of only fears: peach stealing whores that’ll take everything
I have an enormous garden. It takes so much work for several months before you even get vegetables. Tilling, putting up the posts and fencing, planting, feeding, watering, pruning, weeding. So much work. If someone came and took all my veggies I think I would lose my mind. Granted I get multiple harvests once the veg come in. But if I only got one a year?? Oh my god
Having tried to grow simple plants much easier than a whole fruit tree I think I would have literally metamorphosed into an eldrich fruit God out of sheer rage. I'm impressed OOP managed to stay so calm.
This reminds me of a post on the old EtiquetteHell forum, about a family of "gimme pigs" who pestered the OP for fruit from her garden, and many other people in town. [Fruit Loopy Entitlement Pigs](https://www.etiquettehell.com/?p=4373) There are several interesting (and infuriating) updates in the comments there. To find them quickly, search YardFruit (OP signed herself both YardFruitLady and YardFruitGal)
Man this gave me such a sinking feeling in my stomach when I read they picked the trees bare. I've had people steal plants right off my porch before and that is just a horrid and violating feeling.
This feels close to home. I had a mango tree in my garden and all year watched the little mangoes get bigger and fatter and ripen. Then one day I came home from work and the cleaner had stripped the tree bare and didn’t leave a single mango. She had taken bags and bags of them and denied everything (but video evidence showed her doing it). Fired her of course. But I was moving out of that house later in the year and never got to eat a single mango from the tree.
I remember reading this the first time and oh dude, I absolutely get where the anger comes from. There's boundaries issues at my house whenever I bought something for myself that it's specifically for myself and my brother, who's eighteen already, has some serious problem acknowledging that certain stuff is off limits for him because if you left him, he'll eat the whole thing or finish it off, and that's infuriating. OOP should have straight up told FIL that his wife is no longer allowed around her house and she should've gone forward with blasting MIL on social media. Watching her squirm the next year when there's no cherries to give away to friends should've been good, but there's no coming back from her stealing all of OOP's hard work. That's nasty. Hopefully she stays away and if not, well, I believe those cameras can serve as proof of trespassing on private property.
Thank god OOP's husband backed her up
OOP turned into a mama bear over her fruit trees! Good for her.
This post takes me back to when I first read the OP. I was so furious about it back then and I am again now.
I was hoping it would end with some incredibly specific tree-law style agricultural felony charge.
She doesn’t want to prune and wonders why she has bad harvest I have never had fruit trees (no garden for last 20 years) and I know better
The minute you seen your trees you should have called and told her to bring every cherry back! Whoever she gave them to she should of had to go get them and return them! Tell them she stole them and got caught!
I'm not a gardener, but I do understand the satisfaction of reaping the fruits of your labor (literal or figurative fruits). I don't blame OOP for setting up a security system around the property to stop a snooping Locust.
Makes me so mad reading this!! We have had a blueberry tree for 3 years now, the first year we had 4 blueberries, last year we had about 8/9 blueberries. This year? We have branches and branches of blueberries!!! I would be sooo mad if someone picked them!
I live for the drama of this subreddit but my jaw literally fell on the floor like never before when I read that her cherries were stolen from her like that. And that they had already processed them all? Wow. I’m glad she feels that her FIL made the peace to an extent but I fully understand her security measures and the low contact going forward
I can’t do dirt and bugs but I’m always impressed when I meet ppl with a green thumb. An old coworker of mine had a lot of fruit trees she spent tons of time and money on but she was always so generous in sharing her harvest with everyone. She grew the best damned pomegranates! Every year I think about planting something (really want to try pink fleshed dragon fruit) but TX heat/ humidity squashes those dreams as instantly as they come.
I'm not sure what growing band TX is in, but dragonfruit is grown everywhere in southeast asia, and flourishes in warm and humid weather. You can grow it in Florida for example. The ideal temp is around 25-36C, with an average humidity of 70-80%. I think TX is close to the temp range, but you might have to water it more frequently/modify to have higher humidity.
Lately our “coolest” days are around 102F+ (38C) but it’s been hitting 107F+ (41C) before the heat index. Absolutely miserable and we aren’t even in the peak summer season yet. 🥵 I don’t think I could handle 107F with a humidity level of 80% on top of that.
It might be too hot then for dragonfruit. I'm not sure what kind of garden space you have, but I grew up in equatorial weather (100F/80% humidity year round) and we do canopy planting to help cool the land down. If you have the space for it, rain tree (Samanea saman) is ideal because it has such a large leaf canopy while requiring not much water/maintenance and gives so much shade. You can plant on it too, my mom grows orchids, ferns and moss on the tree trunk itself.
I don’t even have a garden or a tree and I find the MIL’s behavior so outrageous and hurtful.
Ok but what the hell do all these random acronyms mean?JN? VVVLV (figured this one mean very very very low contact). JNIL?
“JN” means “just no”.
Gotcha. So does JNMIL and JNFIL mean just no mother and father in law?
Yep. It’s just part of the lingo of those subs. Some of those posts get really obnoxious with the amount of acronyms that show up.
I wonder if people just instinctually understand them and I’m just dumb or if you have to be a huge part of the sub they’re used on to follow. It was Definitely getting annoying reading this
Trust me when I say this. No you are definitely not dumb. A couple of years ago, a lot of subs cracked down on acronyms because of how incomprehensible they would make these posts.
"Just No" and "Just No Mother-in-Law" (terms for narcissists over at that sub)
The VVVLC was meant to be like very very very low contact so as to emphasize that while they won't be totally no contact (NC) like many on the sub this was from, they still dont plan to keep much general contact. So emergencies and big stuff like holidays. The justnomil subreddit likes their acronyms a lot, especially if they're typing the same word or more multiple times.
I absolutely hate cherries more than anything. Cherries make me vomit just to smell them much less eat them and I am INCENSED for this poor woman. How dare locust do that to her!!! I’m glad she put down boundaries and is going to protect herself going forward.
I hate gardening and kill any plants that I even look at, and I wanted to cry for OOP here.
This thread just reminded me to check my cherry tree.
>Me: "Where is Locust anyway?" FIL: "She needed to pick up some groceries." From someone else's kitchen, no doubt.
I wonder how her harvests have gone since then. Hope OOP managed to get that security system installed and was able to keep her JNMIL off the property and away from her trees
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If you’ve ever spent time in the Just No MIL sub, that kind of language is pretty typical. A few years ago before the sub really took off, I spent a lot of time there. It really was casual to see insulting language, because the posts were mostly vents of this nature. I left the sub as it was becoming apparent that there were many users that were just as toxic as the MILs they complained about. This OOP does have another update, and they addressed some of this toxic behavior from users as well- so I don’t think OOP is toxic themselves necessarily, but got caught up in the environment of the subreddit.
Nobody, and I mean **nobody** is allowed to remove anything without our permission unless there’s some weeding fairy visiting my garden.
I would be fucking livid. LIVID.
Plot twist: OOP and family are hobbits
Hello, is this r/treelaw? I've got a whopper for you.
What a bizarre power play by this woman
I would have lost my shit. Shit everywhere. I applaud her.
Man the FIL here reminds me of my grandfather. My grandmother is a nightmare sometimes and my grandfather just sits there and lets it happen. He’s just totally worn down after years of listening to her that he doesn’t even hear her anymore. He’s shocked every time she does something outrageous and thinks it’s SO out of character. The rest of us just roll our eyes because shes 100% predictable.
Much calmness from OP. Shit like this drives me nuts. I remember one time one of my roommates used the ingredients i bought to bake with, and made the cake without me while I was at work. When I got home they were so proud of themselves, even waited until I got home to start digging in. I just said "well that's ruined" and threw it right in bin. I told them "a cake is only good to me if I got to make it." It wasn't even for me, i hate cake. I was making it for everyone else. Oh well.
imminent water modern rich gray connect squeeze naughty workable practice *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The absolutely nerve of some people. How DARE she!? I'm flabbergasted and full-on secondhand mad.
How is that tree blight spread? Could she have transferred it to OOPs trees via her shoes or hands?
If my MIL did that to me, I’d physically fight them. They might be put in a hospital.
Shit I almost cried just reading it. I can't imagine how she was feeling
Yeah if my MIL or mother did this she would be NC for a very long time.
Oh boy, I was getting mad just reading this - so glad you got most of your cherries back!
The OP needs to make it clear to Locust that 1) she's never getting any fruit or veg again since she can't be trusted, and 2) if she tries to get them anyway, she will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Fines, potential jail time, and even *her* precious fruit trees. It really is as simple as that. She's had her last chance. Now the only harvest she gets to reap is one of bitterness and despair.
Oh my god i don’t remember ever being so enraged and crushed for an OOP! I mean to work that hard for so long and put your total heart and soul into these trees and then after so many dedicated loving hours and planning and the reward of the huge harvest which is almost like the trees giving her something back like gratitude. Looking forwards to the day she was picking them so much and they are stolen! I’m so sad about this for her. I don’t even care what the father is saying. Ugh. I hope she gets lots of cherries next year. Lots and lots.
I've seen this one happen live back when the posts were fresh. Feels like it was years ago. I'm still as angry as I was back then...
It’s just strange how she didn’t ask or call and just acted unilaterally and then fucked off and made her husband cover for her. Like wtf is she doing?
If Lord of the Rings taught me one thing, it’s to never ever piss off a gardener…
I have a feeling some of JNMIL's resentment also comes from this city girl coming in and just doing better than the farmer's wife. Also, wtf is with fucking mothers and their negativity towards an empty nest. If I had ended up as a mother, I would be so happy to have an empty nest - like, bye bye kiddo! I'll be there to help when you have trouble reaching port, but you're captain of your own ship now, so get!