MissS wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 7:14 pm Well I grew and gave away well over 200 tomato plants. I don't mind sharing my veggies or my freezer food with someone who needs it. However when someone comes and picks all of the tomatoes off of 32 plants, pulls every beet, takes every cucumber, bean and squash as well as ones wheelbarrow as well as taking from other plots too, I would say that they were not taking this to fill their tummies, they were there to make a profit at others expense. I guess that I ought to be thankful that they left me all of the peppers and cauliflower. It was quite kind of them.

I'm so sorry to read about your garden theft. What a terrible thing to have happen to you and your neighbor gardeners.

I had my neighbors swiping my peppers some time ago.
No big deal for me but it was for them.
One told me they ruined supper they were so hot.
I think I had like a hundred pepper plants that year.

It turns out they only took Dino kale, from my plot and TWO neighboring plots. At least I still have curly kale left, but the neighboring plot didn't plant any other kind of kale so all their kale were taken! This apparently also happened last year but I didn't plant any Dino kale so nothing was taken from my plot.
I also gave away my extra starters in the beginning of fall and would have gladly given them some if they wanted to reach out to the community garden, I would have even bought them seeds since this seems to be a recurring practice for whoever it is.

There are now two signs up to ask people not to take whole plants and if they are in need to contact our garden's email. Not sure if it would deter/induce any guilt in such a person but at least we tried. I might just not plant Dino kale next year

Back in the day in Missouri most everyone went to church on Sunday.
That's when the thieves would come and steal from the gardens and orchards on our place.
We would come home with everything picked clean.
They even stole a calf.
Another bunch took a chainsaw to the side of a house and stole the freezer that had just been filled with that years beef from some peoples farm.
When my mom was a girl in Montana they stole the Christmas ham out of the smoke house on Christmas eve.

[quote=worth1 post_id=35362 time=1607365311 user_id=49]
Back in the day in Missouri most everyone went to church on Sunday.
That's when the thieves would come and steal from the gardens and orchards on our place.
We would come home with everything picked clean.
They even stole a calf.
Another bunch took a chainsaw to the side of a house and stole the freezer that had just been filled with that years beef from some peoples farm.
When my mom was a girl in Montana they stole the Christmas ham out of the smoke house on Christmas eve.
[/quote
Ah okay, you used the word "thieves" so you do understand that there is a difference between the hungry taking enough to have something to eat and someone full out stealing whatever they can get their hands on without a care from the person that was 'donating' the produce. I donate plenty and pay things forward all of the time. The difference between donating and stealing is that the person's whose items are taken from decides who and when the other person gets them.

No wonder people are suspicious if you don't go to church!

[mention]MissS[/mention]
First off even if you steal an apple for food you are still stealing.
But just not deserving of a chopped off hand.
Maybe a few wacks on the back with the rod to discourage anymore activity at said apple stand.
We can't have every petty thief coming in and stealing.
If that were the case you wouldn't have any apples left to sell.
[mention]Bower[/mention]
You nailed it.
Back then people were suspicious of people that didn't go to church.
Especially in that area.
It's even like that today to some extent.

Moral of the story.
Don't brag on the amount of meat your steer butchered out to and then go on vacation in a small community.

[mention]worth1[/mention], let me kindly disabuse you of the notion that I was advocating cutting off the hand of whoever stole the veggies. I was merely saying that it is done in some cultures, implying that the thief in this case is deserving of some form of punishment Too bad you took it the wrong way. I'll not debate this any farther.

[mention]GoDawgs[/mention]
At no time did I think you advocated the cutting of ones hand off.
I just stated that the said cultures had a stealing for food loophole.
A loophole that many don't know about.
I just wanted to clear it up.
And doing so with no blame to you.
Even if someone thought it was okay I would be fine with a thought but not the action.
We are allowed to think as we please in this country for at least the time being.
Do I think said thief should be punished?
Yes I do.
Tar and feathers comes to mind.
We need more tar and feathers in this world.
It might not stop crime but it would be good Saturday afternoon entertainment on the town square.

We're good.

My next door neighbor had a big ruby red grapefruit tree in his backyard. Produced excellent fruit, the old school ruby reds and not the newer rio reds, star ruby, etc. Anyway, my buddy that lived across the street would sneak over at night and pick my next door neighbor’s grapefruit, just a few. One day, the next door neighbor went over to my buddy’s house and gave him a big sack of grapefruit. He said, “Rick, you don’t have to sneak over anymore at night to get my grapefruit”.

Forbidden fruit, as old as mankind.

I just read this for the time, really sorry to hear about it. I sort of expected this type of thing to happen if things got bad last year. With covid. But since nothing got bad except "1 box of eggs per customer"...I am sort of surprised. Not near any cities, here. Lot of people with nothing to do, for a time, but more idleness, boredom, and depression than greed. I know of no thieving that occurred at our comm garden this year. The opposite, as usual - some abandoned plots and some stuff went to rot. Well, more than some. Typically the other gardeners are late spring/summer gardeners. By mid July, there is not much attendance except for picking a few times. One family got a covid case and "quarantined". I dropped off their pumpkins in October or so.

I did take some nice red beets from a neighbor when I didn't have any ready, but that was with encouraged permission. And I "stole" their mulch of beet tops that was freshly laid when they just took the beets.

If it had gotten bad, I half expected our plots to get raided. Probably sweet corn first! I try not to leave tools over there, especially the ones I have welded up myself. But there are neighbors there that would make it hard for someone to get away unnoticed, and cameras in the parking lot I suppose.