Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Tricks to Deter Theft
If your mission includes providing a completely open garden where any and all can help themselves,
ignore the following advice. But if you can't afford or don't want a fence for mission-driven reasons,
you will have to come up with ways to thwart sticky fingers. Here are a few ideas.
Around the perimeter of the garden, plant a series of beds in which the food grown is available to
the public. Indicate this area with signage, so people know the produce is available for the tak-
ing; consider additional signage for plots that are not for public harvesting. With this strategy,
you can also provide educational information on how to pick produce, or how to tell when it is
ripe.
Use visual (non-fence) separators such as plastic flags or rope to identify the off-limits areas of
your garden. Signage can be used to share your logic with guest harvesters.
Plant things people don't recognize! White eggplants, white or green-when-ripe tomatoes, purple
peppers, golden watermelons, and oddly colored or variegated herbs make people think twice
about picking something they don't immediately recognize.
If your program is dedicated to growing food for food pantries, nutrition programs, or some other
worthy cause, let people know; create signage that explains the public service the garden is
providing. This can reduce unauthorized harvesting.
THIEVING DEER: A FUNNY STORY
I was once visiting a community garden and struck up a conversation with one of the organizers. We
were chatting about various community garden management issues, when the topic of fences came up.
She mentioned that they had recently given up and put up a fence because the gardeners were so dis-
couraged by all the losses. I sympathized with her and nodded in agreement as I listened to her tale.
After a few minutes, We both sighed and I said, “Thieves!” as she simultaneously said, “Deer!” It was a
funny moment because in our urban gardens, people are the culprits. In her suburban site, deer are the
offenders. We'd talked about fences for almost five minutes, thinking we were talking about the same
issue! We both got a good laugh out of it—and learned that for all of the similarities in our city and
country community gardens, there are differences as well!
Neighbor Concerns
In addition to the compost issues discussed earlier, there are other worries your neighbors may have as
your garden starts to take shape. You'll probably hear these objections at your early community meet-
ings. If they don't come up then, great. But don't be surprised if they surface later, once the garden is
established.
Bad odors
Rightly or wrongly, people think big gardens are stinky. Probably because they haven't been
around gardens much. But all that talk of fertilizer and compost gets some neighbors nervous. Most
garden products aren't smelly, so, practically speaking, this isn't a real issue. But managing
perceptions
is sometimes more challenging than managing reality.
