The Garden Plot

Franklin W. Dixon, Santy Gutierrez

• Publisher: Aladdin
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781534476837
• eBook ISBN: 9781534476851

Detective brothers Frank and Joe weed out a vandal in the fifteenth book in the interactive Hardy Boys Clue Book series.

Frank and Joe Hardy have been hard at work turning their front yard into an eco-friendly edible landscape garden thanks to a contest sponsored by the Bayport Science Center. Frank’s really been enjoying learning about how to make the garden thrive, while Joe likes all of the cool critters and, of course, getting to munch on all of the yummy food.

When the prize vegetables being grown in some of the top competitors’ gardens are attacked, at first it looks like hungry pests have been having a feast. But as Frank and Joe unearth more evidence, it appears those cucumbers aren’t being crunched by creatures with a craving. No, the veggies are the target of a clever saboteur. The Hardys will have to figure out who’s been destroying the gardens fast, before their friends’ chances of winning the contest are shredded like lettuce.

READY, SET, GROW!

“Gardening is the best,” eight-year-old Joe Hardy said, leaning back in his lawn chair and munching on a freshly pulled carrot.

“There’s a difference between eating the garden and gardening.” His older brother, Frank, looked up from weeding the zucchini patch. “I’m the one doing most of the work. And if you keep eating all our veggies, there won’t be anything left for the judges from the FEEL Contest to judge.”

The Bayport Science Center was sponsoring the Friendly Environment Edible Lawn—FEEL for short—Contest. Just about all the houses in the Hardys’ neighborhood had signed up to turn their front lawns into eco-friendly edible landscape gardens.

“It’s an edible landscape contest. What good is a yard full of plants you can eat if you’re not allowed to eat the edibles? Right, Mr. Bee?” Joe asked the bumblebee collecting pollen from one of the bright red nasturtium flowers growing along the path leading to the Hardys’ front door. Joe plucked one of the petals and popped it into his mouth. “Who knew flowers could be so tasty?”

“The bees help by pollinating the plants,” Frank said. “You just eat them!”

Joe shrugged. “By the way, the beans look like they could use some watering, when you get a chance.” He took another bite of his carrot. “See, I’m helping!”

Joe pulled a leaf from a tall stalk with pom-pom-shaped purple flowers on top, but Frank started waving his hands in the air. “Don’t eat the milkweed leaves! Not all parts of every plant are edible or okay to snack on raw. You should never try something unless you’re totally sure.”

Frank sighed. “Besides, the block party where they judge the contest is just a few days away, and I want to at least get an honorable mention. Even if we don’t win, there are still a lot of great prizes for the runners-up.”

“Our neighborhood sure has come a long way since they announced the contest a few months ago,” Joe said, looking up and down their tree-lined street. “Before everyone started gardening this spring, the street was full of boring old grassy front lawns.”

“All that water people were using just to grow grass no one can eat is now growing lots of food,” Frank said. “Edible lawns look good and they’re good for the planet.”

“And tasty!” Joe said. “The whole street is like one big, beautiful garden full of munchies.”

“Some of the yards are more beautiful than others.”

Joe and Frank looked up to see their schoolmate Vic hop onto the curb in front of their house. He wore a fancy leather holster with a garden spade on one hip and a pruner on the other. His knees were covered in dirt, just like Frank’s.

“Don’t rub it in, Vic,” Frank grumbled, looking across the street at the gorgeous edible jungle growing on Vic’s front lawn.

“You gotta admit, it is pretty spectacular,” Joe said. “The kale plants look like little palm trees! And check out all those cucumbers. There must be a hundred of them!” He whistled at the six-foot-tall trellis next to Vic’s house. It was made of carefully crisscrossed bamboo poles, and cucumbers of different colors, shapes, and sizes dangled from the green-leafed vines that were climbing up it.

Vic glanced across the street, admiring his garden. “Thanks, Joe. My family’s always been known for our green thumbs. Your garden isn’t bad either.”

“It could be better,” Frank said with a sad glance at the spotty patch of lettuce next to him.

“Everybody can’t be the best at everything,” Vic said, leaning on the Hardys’ gated fence. “My family may be gifted gardeners, but everyone knows the Hardys are Bayport’s best mystery solvers. Not that it’s any mystery who’s going to win the FEEL competition.”

Vic looped his thumbs through the belt of his holster and grinned.

“Gardening is a new hobby for me, I guess,” Frank said, looking down at the stack of gardening books and seed catalogs sitting next to his bin of tools.

The whole town knew about the Hardy boys’ first hobby—detecting. Their dad, Fenton, was a detective, so like Vic’s green thumb, it ran in the family.

“Us gumshoes make okay gardeners, but our specialty really is cracking cases,” said Joe.

“What’s a gumshoe?” Vic asked.

“It’s an old-timey way of saying detective,” Joe explained.

“The rubber on sneakers used to be called gum, so ‘gumshoe’ means an investigator who can sneak around and be stealthy,” Frank added.

There was a sudden not-at-all-stealthy rustling from the bushes behind the garden. The three boys looked up to see the leaves shaking, like something was lurking inside them.

Vic bit his lip nervously. “Um, what is—”

Before he could finish his question, a wild beast burst into the yard!

FURRY FRENEMIES

Vic yelped at the sight of the furry creature.

Frank gritted his teeth and growled.

Joe grinned and waved. “Hi, Woody!” he called to the pudgy brown animal as it waddled up to the fence behind the garden. It was the size of a very fat cat, with stumpy little legs, a shortish tail, and buck teeth. The animal looked like a beaver, but without the big, flat tail.

Vic gasped. “A woodchuck!”

“Joe hasn’t been the only one eating the edible landscape behind my back. Woody’s the reason we’re out of the running for the FEEL Contest.” Frank flicked a string bean on one of the too-short vines climbing up the fence. “My green bean plants were nearly as tall as your cucumbers before Woody and his friends started gnawing on them.”

“Turns out woodchucks don’t chuck wood at all,” Joe said. “They chuck Frank’s beans!”

“They’re also called groundhogs, and now I know why,” Frank added with a sigh. “They hog all the veggies. They like green beans and just about everything else except for some of the herbs. Thanks to the woodchucks, my dreams of winning the contest are gone—along with most of my lettuce! They ate half the garden before we put up my WDS to keep them out.”

“Your WD-what?” Vic asked.

“Woodchuck Defense System.” Frank tapped the white picket fence Vic was leaning on. “Two layers. Cedar wood on the front so it looks nice, with impenetrable wire fencing on the back so nothing can slip or chew through.”

Vic gave a tug on the sturdy steel wire. The metal seemed too thick to gnaw through, and the holes in the wire fence were only about two inches wide.

Woody barely seemed to notice them as he walked over to the far corner of the fence and jammed his nose into a large bowl filled with old fruit. A second later, he stood up on his hind legs, holding an apple core between paws that looked like little gloved hands, and started to stuff his face.

“You guys are feeding them?!” Vic asked.

“Joe is feeding them,” Frank corrected.

Joe shrugged. “Woody and his friends are cute. And I feel bad about locking him out of the garden. It’s not his fault Frank grows such tasty veggies.” Joe popped a ripe red cherry tomato into his mouth.

Frank sighed again. “Thankfully, groundhogs seem to like old fruit even more than vegetables.”

“Bananas are Woody’s favorite,” Joe added.

“And if we feed them, they’ll be less tempted to steal anything from someone else’s garden,” Frank explained. “There’s no way they’re getting through my WDS either way.”

“Now you just need to build a fence to keep Joe out,” Vic said.

Joe grinned and chomped down on another tomato. Frank threw up his hands.

“I sure am glad I don’t have any furry frenemies on my side of the street. I don’t know what I’d do if something tried to eat my veggies.” Vic paused. “We have a mouse in our house, but that doesn’t bother me. It drives my parents bananas, though. Mice can flatten their bodies like little furry pancakes to squeeze through teeny-tiny cracks, so they’re really hard to keep out. On the plus side for me, they’re happier in the pantry than the garden.”

“You might not know from looking at them, but mice and woodchucks are related,” Frank said. “Groundhogs aren’t really hogs at all. They’re rodents. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Chapter 1: Ready, Set, Grow!
• Chapter 2: Furry Frenemies
• Chapter 3: Edible Envy
• Chapter 4: Cucumber Crime Scene
• Chapter 5: Fence Defense!
• Chapter 6: Nefarious Neighborliness
• Chapter 7: Mouse Maneuvers
• Chapter 8: Why Did the Woodchuck Cross the Road?
• Chapter 9: Pick a Peck of Un-Pickled Peppers
• The Hardy Boys—and You!
• Chapter 10: The Good, The Bad, and the Bananas
• About the Author and Illustrator
• Copyright