Garden thieves

Garden thievery seems to be more prevalent. Has anyone here experienced a theft? Do you use a camera to catch thieves, whether animals or humans? The humans in this first link sure look like they are hard up for free plants.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/06/07/ ... ty-camera/

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150806 ... me-forward
http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150701 ... mpany-says

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/2015072 ... -pilfering

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/6 ... onal-trend

http://commmunitygardening.blogspot.com ... rdens.html

Our community garden this year planted seven public boxes along the parkway, and it took most of the year before we had actual thievery. We encourage people to snip herbs and harvest greens, but ask them to leave some of the plant so it can keep growing... but yesterday I found five of our eight big beautiful marigold plants dug up and missing (they were part of a display on companion planting; most of the kale was ripped up but the plant bases were still there). It's frustrating but frankly I'm surprised that it took this long. We've had great support from our neighbors, and there's often a cop parked in Triangle park just kittycorner from us, so maybe that's how we got our reprieve.

It still sucks, though, and I'm sorry to hear it's so widespread.

A few summers back we could not figure out why our tomatoes were missing from our backyard garden. As they began to ripen, they seemed to have disappeared overnight. Week after week, our prize red beauties vanished. Then one night hubby heard a car running for a prolonged time. He looked out the window and there he saw the Tribune newspaper deliverer sorting out our tomatoes by size and variety on his front seat-with the interior light on. He had at least a dozen or so. Hubby called the Trib that morning to complain. They called back about an hour later and said the driver had admitted to the thefts and the Trib said they would pay us for the tomatoes. We declined the offer and told them to tell him to stop stealing.

Elfin wrote:A few summers back we could not figure out why our tomatoes were missing from our backyard garden. As they began to ripen, they seemed to have disappeared overnight. Week after week, our prize red beauties vanished. Then one night hubby heard a car running for a prolonged time. He looked out the window and there he saw the Tribune newspaper deliverer sorting out our tomatoes by size and variety on his front seat-with the interior light on. He had at least a dozen or so. Hubby called the Trib that morning to complain. They called back about an hour later and said the driver had admitted to the thefts and the Trib said they would pay us for the tomatoes. We declined the offer and told them to tell him to stop stealing.

You are very kind and generous. My tendency would have been to levy a charge commensurate with the labor and expenses involved in cultivating my garden tomatoes -- I'm guessing upwards of $15/pound.

Our neighbor's landscaping crew stole tomatoes this morning-all the ripe ones.

Protect a Garden From Thieves :

Grow crops people don't recognize. From nettles to goji berries, there are plenty of crops that people aren't used to seeing in the stores. Why not take advantage of that? They probably won't even realize it is food.

Grow root crops. Potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, parsnips. The options are endless. not only will the main "prize" be hiding out of sight, reducing temptation—but these crops are also harder work to harvest, so will be less likely to get lifted on a whim.

Grow trickster plants. There are some delicious varieties of green tomatoes. Consider growing some of these—thieves may not even realize they are ready to eat.