The perils of a front yard garden

I have been doing more gardening in my front yard over the past few years. A first it was just flowers, but I have been adding vegetables slowly, adding some raised beds, and covering up the grass with more useful plants. We have our beans growing in the front, as well as pumpkins and other assorted herbs. There is always some danger to these plants, as the front yard is where my kids play with the neighbor kids. The neighbor kids don't have quite the same love of plants as I do as I have seen them running over my plants, as well as attempting to pull things off. My oldest usually sets them straight, and we have had fewer and fewer incidents.

I planted several sunflowers in a tiny bed near my mail box. A couple of them were the giant types. Well, we had our first one open up a couple days ago, and I was so excited! It was over 6 feet tall, and it was gorgeous.

But then tragedy. We came out this morning and found this:
Someone had ripped it off its stem, pulled out several petals, then dropped it to the ground. I was really upset.

Here is where it would have been. Right in the middle of these unopened flowers. They even bent some of those stems.

I wish more people would instill a sense of responsibility in their children. Don't destroy things that don't belong to you. At the very least, if you have a need to rip defenseless sunflower heads off of their plants, please grow your own and then do whatever you want with them.

I'm glad they left this one alone. It's not as big as the first one, but it's still beautiful.
I thought about putting a sign up, but that would probably invite more trouble. Most of these kids are just bored.

Other scenes from our front yard garden:

M planted a pumpkin seed in the front yard. It doesn't seem to care that the soil has not been amended or that it has been attacked by squash vine borers (twice I have saved it!). It seems to be thriving.


Our 2nd sowing of beans are coming up:


And finally - our figs are coming in - yea!