There have been a few posts about balancing professional and personal life in our business...I guess any business. Yes, it can be done. This morning 
though, blogging is teetering between professional and personal. So, in the interest of kick starting the garden this year, the content of the post won't be of much use to buyers or sellers unless they are gardeners too. Today, I didn't have time to really think out a clever real estate content ladened post. I gave up quality blog time in order to cut the potatoes for planting on Friday!
Here's a bit of a tie in to real estate...if you are a seller with a bodacious 
garden planted in the ground and you are lucky enough to get it under contract but unlucky that the closing is scheduled before harvest, who owns the yield? Keep in mind, I'm just talking about a significantly sized garden with many dollars invested.
The answer everyone hates...it depends! Leave aside commercial farms, different topic for a different day. Home gardens, unless you have planted all in containers that are removable will more than likely become the property of the new owner. UNLESS!!! Your listing agent knows how important that yield is to you. Most of the folks in this area aren't just planting for fun. They are trying to control the quality of food they and their family ingests. Just like our own garden, that produce is destined to be frozen, dehydrated, canned as well as consumed fresh. To those sellers, there's a lot more value in their garden harvest than the odd boxwood or peony on the property.
What do you do? A terrible choice but a choice nonetheless is to not plant a garden at all. If you are moving from the area, the best kharma would be to
leave a "to do" list for the new owners and wish them well. Perhaps, you can ask the listing agent to disclose in Agent Remarks that the contents of the garden will need to be discussed during contract negotiations! Sure, why not? There is a good chance that the next owner may be a gardener too! Why not harvest together with the new owners and split the produce? Or put a dollar figure on the garden, just like you might with the fuel left in a propane tank?
Be prepared though that there is also the chance that the new owner will bulldoze down your beautiful garden and put in a swimming pool! In that case, I'd try to negotiate for the harvest. What's the worse that can happen, right?
There are options. Alway remember that a contract is simply a combination of terms that two parties agree to adhere to.
Wow...look at that! Turns out I had time for a blog after all. LOL. It's like that sometimes, right? You sort of have a kernel (another gardening reference) of an idea for a blog or you just don't want to slack off on your commitment to post regularly and BAM...it happens! A whole freaking blog done before the workday begins...here I go off to show, enter listings, sign a new listing and so on and so on. LOL.
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