A shared garden needs clear agreements about the work nobody can admire from the path.

Every shared project has visible work and invisible work. In a garden the visible part is planting and picking; the invisible part is watering in August, hauling compost, and dealing with what has gone to seed. Praise naturally follows the visible half, so the invisible half quietly lands on whoever minds least, until that person begins to mind a great deal.

If you share ground with anyone, name the unglamorous jobs out loud and decide who has them. Write it somewhere both of you can see. Revisit it when the season changes, because the hidden work moves, and an agreement made in spring stops describing August.