Kitchen Garden Forum

We recently had our shed broken into at the allotment and most of our stuff taken. We were well fed up! We don`t see our plot neighbours much as they are still wage slaves - but within days of the thievery they came to see us one by one bearing gifts of tools and equipment. One guy we don`t know well at all came along trundling a petrol mower (we have a lot of grass under our fruit trees.) He said " Could you use this? I`ve got a new one." We had to blink rapidly and swallow hard! Our shed is now very well secured!

Sorry to hear of your misfortune, Elderflower.
Don't have an allotment myself but I gather from other postings on here that security can be a problem. There were some imaginative solutions suggested! I hope you get everything replaced soon.

Thanks Zena - our site is actually relatively secure and break-ins are fairly rare. It`s surrounded by housing, i.e. people`s back gardens, and the local cemetery, which has one of those 7 foot security fences. We`ve more or less replaced everything now, partly thanks to the generosity of our plot-neighbours. We got a real warm glow from that!
Cheers, E.

My dear Elderflower, what awfully bad luck, nice to hear you have some good neighbours though.
Just wondered if they might have dug under the fence from the cemetery, you will soon know, if the cemetery starts getting tidied at night, spooky.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

May the Lords hand weigh heavily upon them.

Hi O.H! I`ll keep an eye on the cemetery! It`s actually very well tended compared with some you see. Apart from the council guys there`s a sturdy bunch of older people who tend all the graves the other side of the fence. It`s a bit like a social club sometimes with the widows, and widowers, meeting, discussing the flowers and doing a bit of weeding around their loved ones. It`s funny sometimes to hear the odd conversation with their dear departeds. I heard one old lady say, "Flippin `eck George, you`ve got a right load of dandelions this week!" I didn`t hear any reply though!
Best wishes, E.F.

i know how you feel elderflower i was robbed 3 weeks ago. all the small tools went. the thing that really narked me was the damage done to my shed they couldnt get through the door so they ripped the back of the shed off and they stripped 12 sweetcorn plants of unripe cobs in my polytunnel ruining an entire crop. my sons were very upset as they planted them and were looking after them.

Our site gets robbed regulalry by the local prats. We've had shed, greenhouses burned down, thefts and general damage.

We had one bloke who was sleeping rough in one of the greenhouses but he tidied up after himself, didn't take anything and behaved so you don't mind that as such.

We know who is doing it, it's just catching them. One of the blokes is wanting to "have a word" after
they burned down his shed.

We have the police involved and there is forensic evidence it's just finding the buggers.

Keep your pecker up and stay on the plots. Don't let them bully you off.

Vandalism and theft visit every site at some point... the ironic thing is that you hear people who have suffered saying "I was lucky they only took..... but they didn't do any damage"

Aren't we a funny lot being thankful we have been vandalised... nicely!

Flog the lot of 'em says I