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I know allotment gardening is big in the UK, not so much here. I have always wondered about the security of allotments - do you ever suffer vandalism? People pinching your veggies or equipment?

Unfortunately the answer is yes.

Mostly it's just plain vandalism on our lotties by kids. We've recently had a fence put up at the end nearest the houses and this has apparently cut a lot of problems down.

There are two schools of thought on what to do to avoid trouble.

1. You fence your plot and cover everything in barbed wire, multiple locks etc. This approach is taken by the prize growers, leeks, dalia's,gladiolli, since the kids go in and up root stuff just for the "fun" of it.

2. you leave it accessable to anyone, but don't make it look like theres anything worth investigating or vandalising. E.g any glass is a big no,no.
Some people buy second hand tools etc and leave them in their shed. i inherited them in my shed, which was unlocked for two years. People say the kids arnt looking to steal, and the more you try to keep them out the more enticing it is to give it ago.

We just don't keep anything down there that is of any value. We walk down and carry our spade with us and then we also drive (when we really have to) and take other bits with us. Unfortunately it is a sad fact of life but is also more convenient for us as it means we can still use our tools etc at home rather than having 2 lots.

a sad fact is that people who steal tools from allotments can always sell them off cheap at bootfairs to people wanting cheap old tools to leave at their allotments

vandalism is a very big problem at many UK allotment sites and I know of a great many folk who, after decades of hard graft, have given their plot up because of it

We have had stuff vandalised on our first plot, pumpkins nurtured from seeds kicked in when almost ready to harvest. I was fuming at this. However, I think that if school kids and teenagers (especially) had a school garden and were given the opportunity to grow stuff then they might realise how much effort goes into it and perhaps be less likely to vandalise allotments.

Thieving can also be a problem we are relativley lucky (touch wood) and only one theft in the last 20 years has happened on our latest plot. That was 2 months ago when the fence was broken for a while (broken by the council).

Our first allotment was accessible by everyone as it was a through route and their were repeated thefts and vandalism. Locked sheds broken into and plants up rooted, in fact a whole shed and its contents was stolen once. It also became a place for fly tipping.

I would love to agree with your point 2 cheezy but in my experience I cannot. Give me a locked up allotment over one that is open to all any day - perhaps not the overkill of barbwire and numerous locks just one that has a small fence (as we do now) and a gate with a lock on it. A small deterrent to keep bored hands and feet away.

I think I'd weep if something I had carefully nurtured was pulled up for the fun of it. Thanks for the answers - I was curious if a) allotments did suffer these kind of problems and b) what allotment holders do about it.

my dad had his pumpkins stolen last year my little girl was gutted, but I to would go for secure lottie over a walkthrough, usually by thier nature they are out of the way and sometimes it can be to late before somebody notices something has gone awry scumbags - some people you will never educate though I do agree with gardening in schools to give them an idea of the work involved.

There are two types of problem - vandalism, usually perpetrated by "homeless orphans" [1] - and the more professional thief on the lookout for expensive tools, especially power tools.

We don't keep any power tools on the allotment, only hand tools. We spend a fair amount of time "decorating" the fence with bramble prunings and making sure it is difficult to lift up and crawl under. One of my own methods is to gather any cat poop from the allotment and place that at the foot of the fence. Screw the Geneva Convention, germ warfare is perfectly fair on an allotment...

We also leave any nettles or brambles growing immediately against the fence.

Once in a while the sheds will be broken into but this might happen less often. After a recent break-in on a nearby site, one of the victims followed the tracks of his cultivator to the garden of a nearby house and called the police who later found all the missing items in the shed.

That said, our site isn't too bad, the problems are more of an irritation than being under siege as I know some sites are.

Wassail

Karen




[1] I refer to them as such because these kids never seem to belong to anyone local. Hence the thought they must be brought in special from inner city council estates just to vandalise places that the local Tarquins would never destroy because they are such good, pwechus little angels...

well i had my shed broken in to sat night was told about it sun miracle nowt was nicked.but it seems to be something what happens in this law abiding country lol.
regards dave

Hi all the wife and I have just got an allotment for the 1st time and it has got high fence with barbed wire on top and at least 8ft gates topped off with the barbed wire. on our plot we have got another fence around that and that was only there when the other person keep chickens.

I did ask if they had much theift or vandalism and luckily they said no. So we can leave something at the shed but we do take most thing home again

Our allotment site had been abandoned for several years before I got my plots because all the tenants had been driven out by endless thefts and acts of vandalism. When I started work there I was advised by many local people not to bother as 'the kids from the estate' would wreck everything.

Well I don't hold with that sort of defeatist talk and carried on regardless. Now the site is almost fully tenanted again and touchwood, we've not had any problems. The council fitted a decent 6-foot high steel gate to which we've added some little spikes and the dense hawthorn bushes surrounding 3 sides of the site have been attended to and any gaps filled in.

I've been round and chatted up the neighbours whose gardens back on to the allotments, plied them with rhubarb, (the only crop we've got so far!) and asked them to call me as well as the police if they see anyone causing trouble. My baseball bat and myself live 300 yards away.

The fact that the plots have been empty for a while probably works in our favour. The kids who caused the problems some years ago will now be in their twenties and either be reformed characters, drug dealers, or 'inside.' The kids of an age likely to cause trouble are seldom to be seen away from a playstation or PC screen and far from wanting to steal vegatables, look like they've never eaten one in their lives.

While a basic level of security is sensible however, I can't help feeling that if we were to make the site look like Fort Knox, it would just attract attention and make it look as though breaking in could be an attractive proposition. In my experience also, people who are totally paranoid about security tend to be the very people who subsequently get broken into. Some kind of karma at work?

Speaking of which, no doubt the very fact that I've sat down typing this drivel means that I'll wander down the plot with the dog in a few minutes time and find my shed trashed!

Cheers
Duncan

We used to have a lot of trouble when i first had a plot at this site. I was a member of the committee and featured in a local newspaper campaign. Not sure wether that actually alerted the local nonces to that fact there was something to pinch though!
I gave up, not because of repeated theft, but job demands. When I returned some 15 years later, the much promised fencing had been erected around the whole site and theft was practically eliminated. This despite or maybe because of us backing onto a new build estate and a school.The school has a garden, my daughter attends the schol, my wife works there too. I think the fact that green issues and food issues are so prominent in kids minds now, they respect fresh food and gardens much more now.When I was a teenager, I used to go scrumping with my friends, we would pinch an apple here or there on an afternoon as we walked home from a day's play. I know its wrong, but then we were out playing all day. I don't imagine many kids do that sort of thing now, they all stay indoors on games machines or chatting online and on mobiles!
I hasten to add,I think there is a great deal of difference between the romantically imaged idea of scrumping and the disturbing habit or pointless wrecking of entire plots or theft of tools and goods. Before the fencing, when I first had a plot, it was not unusual to see people drive a van onto the site, several blokes get out and empty whole plots , using the plotholders own tools and barrows, then load the van and disappear. We knew it was a gang of organised thieves, the Police knew, but there were too many for a single plotholder or a group of pensioners to tackle and they were professional.
Fortunately , that also disappeared when the fence appeared. It came with a high, spiked and locked gate!

Pardon my ignorance but until tonight I had never heard the term 'alotment'. Is this something you rent, buy or squat? Are your house blocks too small to have a garden? It certainly sounds like a good idea especially for people who live in a city.

The name comes from an allotted piece of land. It started during the dark ages of class distinction when the workers had small terraced houses with a paved yard at the rear and a door that stepped out to the road at the front. Having no ground to grow food in,(The landed gentry had all the acres you could swing a fox in), they had to grow their food up tall brick corridors, known as chimneys. People would often send small children up chimneys to collect the veg, but they would eat it on the way down and turn black and sooty with guilt.
When the war years came , and the british were encouraged to dig for victory, they were given small areas of land to dig and soon started making horizontal chimneys instead. These soon started producing fine foods such as brussel sprouts, spinach and sausages.
After the war years most of the countries chimneys had been destroyed by the german bombers so the government let the workers keep the small plots as it gave them something to do rather than stare at the soldiers coming home looking healthier and wealthier than those they left behind.
Realistically, they were plots of land given to workers to enable them to subsidise their meagre wages and to help them eat fresh fruit and veg and so stave off ailments at a period when there was no NHS service.

this is a good article explaining what allotments are.

Not all the 'house blocks' too small for gardens but, just like in Australia, in cities etc, properties are likely to have little or no garden. however many people have a large garden AND and allotment

Allotments are becoming popular again, so often there is a long waiting list.