Those who tend urban gardens in New York City are reporting that their fruits and vegetables are disappearing -- from a single cucumber nurtured for weeks to a tree stripped of all of its figs.

You can blame the poor economy, of course. Or you can blame the breakdown in social conventions. Or you can conclude that people are too lazy to grow their own.

When the City of Baltimore converted all its flower beds to vegetable gardens to feed the poor, filfering was one concern. The gardens keepers concluded that if the garden was indeed for the hungry, it shouldn't matter at what point in the process they eat from it.

But the same is not true for city gardeners, who often wait a season or more to claim a patch of dirty in an empty lot in which to grow a few vegetables for themselves and their families. Stealing from those gardens is akin to reaching in a kitchen window.