Thefts from allotments!

[Ratty]

I heard about this on BBC1's Breakfast news this morning but the only link I can find online is to a less than lovely newspaper - sorry guys! But the story is the same - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... bills.html

[Annpan]

They will be talking about it on Radio 2... on the Jeremy Vine show in a few minutes

[Ratty]

Oooh thank you Annpan! I'll get the radio turned back on. I only watch Breakfast news on TV now as I'm trying to encourage OH that we really really can live without the damn thing!

[AXJ]

This is clearly very bad news, scrumping on a grand scale. The only problem with this kind of reporting is that it gives people ideas.

[MKG]

You know those speaking greetings cards? It wouldn't cost much to create a version which could be slipped between the leaves of a cabbage, or embedded in a sacrificial potato or two, or even gently inserted into a bean pod. The reaction of someone walking down the High Street carrying something proclaiming to be a kidnapped cabbage or a pinched potato might be amusing.

[hamster]

Sounds rather Harry Potter-esque, but a rather appealing idea nonetheless...

[Annpan]

I can't believe they called it scrumping

No, it's called theft! You wouldn't steal food out of someone's fridge

[Karen_D]

Ah, newspeak!

"two wheelbarrow loads of rhubarb and beetroot were recently stolen,"

Doesn't sound like a starving family to me, more like an organised theft to be sold on later at a stall/shop.

Apart from more organised stealing - such as this and theft of tools from sheds that involve some kind of breaking in - I suspect most allotment thefts are not done by outsiders but by other allotment holders [1].

Wassail

Karen




[1] Particularly those who don't harvest their own crops because it might leave a gap and that might mean they lose points in the competition - and we all know that winning some tacky tinware is the entire purpose of having an allotment, don't we? *tries to suppress more angry ranting *

[Jobi1canobi]

I suspect most allotment thefts are not done by outsiders but by other allotment holders [1].

Controversial!

[Super.Niki]

I do feelt hat this whole "economy crisis" thin is being blamed for almost everything... I mean no family has to steal a wheelbarrow full of ruhbarb... it's not like it's a "popular veg" (like onions, tatties, carrots etc) it does sound a but too organised for my liking! Why suddenly jump to the conclusion it's a "poor starving family"....?

on our local news the other day (East Midlands) the "credit crunch" was being blames for people pinching flowers form the local park... I kid you not they said "some famililes jsut can't afford to make thier gardens look pretty, so they're resorting to stealing local flowers".... I think perhaps not?

[AXJ]

I blame the moving picture show

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=wrqRv0s5McU

[Jobi1canobi]

I do feel that this whole "economy crisis" thing is being blamed for almost everything...

I really don't think a lot of people would realise that costs were rising unless there was so much hype on TV. Some people are too busy spending money like it's going out of fashion to notice what they are actually paying out.

I read on another forum - that some students (although I wouldn't wish to single them out) think that it's a bit 'cheap' to have loose change and 'coppers' in their purses/wallets so they just leave it lying around.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/sho ... ding+money Post #35 onwards

[JasonP71]

I've heard that there's things, or food I should say, been stolen from our allotments - vandalism and tool theft are fairly common, but food...? Nothing from mine yet because there's nothing there yet - only had it for a few weeks. I do think that food prices are going to get higher and higher, and if people get desperate enough and there's food lying around, I'm sure they would. The thing that grates about this is that anyone can grow food, anyone can see the prices rising and the people who have the foresight to do something about it, or who have been growing their own for years, will suffer if this does become a large scale problem.

So what can you do about it if you need to defend your plot? Do you get Wallace and Gromit in to install infra red trip switches in your gnomes? Or leave a load of rakes lying around? Maybe get some exploding cucmbers or tasty looking veg that will cause stomach cramps if eaten? Some silly ideas of course, but I know I'm going to be mightily cheesed off if I spend months on end raising fruit and veg only to have it pilfered, as I'm sure anyone would...

Jason.

[eccentric_emma]

That article is just nuts. I couldn't even contemplate stealing from an allotment. Craziness. But I agree with most of you, in that I doubt it was a starving family. Just doesn't sound right.

[FarmerPhoebe]

My 2nd or 3rd year at my former community garden, somebody stole ALL of my carrots - probably about 15-20 lb worth. What made it even more tragic was that I had been to the patch that Wednesday after work & decided I was going to harvest most of the carrots that Saturday. Up until then I just thinned them and harvested one or two at a time for salads. By the time I showed up on Saturday they were gone. How violating. One of my gardening neighbors thought that some of the people who lived in the neighborhood misinterpret the meaning of "community" gardens. Her theory is that they live in the community so these must be their gardens.

Pilfering is pretty typical where I live. But I've never before or since had somebody steal an entire crop!