Tomato theft.

[Glenn 50]

Just wondering if any of you folks have ever had to deal with tomato theft?
I have a row of Moscow loaded with fruit. Hopefully this weekend I shall start to hit the market with my toms.
Anyway..back to the Moscow. This evening went to my "other" tomato patch next door and discovered 90% of the Moscow gone.
Looked at my Speckled Roman and noticed the big bunches I had were depleted by half.
I think 50 percent of my not quite ripe tomatoes have gone from that patch.
Some of the missing tomatoes are because I let my neighbour pick some however I find that the whole street is benefiting from Jan's and my hard work.
Our neighbour is trying to buy his way into a neighbours knickers with my tomatoes. (Seriously...well sort of) So far he hasn't got past the front doorstep but my tomatoes do.
Other neighbours don't appear to run short of tomatoes either. I don't mind giving tomatoes to the elderly but I am sure that they are helping themselves. Due to my interest I know every tomato on my vines and I notice when the ones I have been waiting for disappear.
Unfortunately I can't be everywhere.

I wonder if there was a disaster how folks around here would act?

Then apart from the thieves along come the bludgers. Inlaws and relatives who blatantly ask for some tomatoes and keep turning up weekly during the tomato season like a bad smell.
I don't mind tomatoes for immediate family...sons mother etc but I get fed up with the others. Those that don't have a garden and "don't you think that tomatoes should be red". "Oh no...you keep the green tomatoes, just give me red."
Runner Beans aren't so popular unless we have already top and tailed and sliced them. Then they will take them.

There you are...I've had my moan. How do you folk handle the thieves and bludgers or are your neighbours and inlaws all saints?
Glenn the grump.

[Andrey_BY]

Glenn, this is a real problem here in Belarus. You know we are rather poor country with average salary around 250-300USD a month, so there are too many people (especially who used to drink a lot and always are looking for extra money or everything they can get to sell or just eat after or while they are drinking) who makes a lot of problems to the gardeners.
You know many of us have dachas (country-houses), but used to visit them only on week-ends. So when urban people come back to their dacha f.e. in July when it's all green and ready to be ripped there could be such kind of bad surprises. Sometimes it's all happend even if the gardener is living all the time at dacha and likes to go to sleep early
Drug addicted persons is another problem we have here. That's why it's really hard to find poppies in our gardens...

[TomatoDon]

Tomato thieves drive me nuts, too. I will give anyone a tomato, or all they want, but I don't like stealing.

One year my girlfriend and I went out of town and bought some really nice plants when no one in our town had them yet, and bought enough for the whole family. Surpisingly, they didn't take them. So, we planted them, and I'll be dang as soon as they were ripe, here comes the family just helping themselves without asking, taking the biggest and best.

Another time we planted early and had the first tomatoes in town. We spent a lot of time and effort to have the first ones. We were watching two in particular, letting them get to the peak of ripeness to celebrate the Spring with the first tomato sandwich in town, and I'll be dang if they didn't slip in while I was gone and get those too!

Other times I have come home and found them picking sackfuls without asking. Sometimes I would come in and they had stripped the best and biggest. I didn't want a family fuss, so put up a fence. This didn't stop it either. So, I built 11 more raised beds on the farm. They didn't bother us to much out there because we kept the gate locked, and even then they wanted a key which they didn't get. So, I haven't raised tomatoes in town for two years. I think word has gotten back to them about it, and I'm going to try some in town this year and am determined this time to call them on it if it starts again. After I quit planting in town they started growing their own. So far no one has offered me a one.

I'm putting up a sign. "Heirloom Tomato Test Patch. Do not pick." If that doesn't work I have a nice BB gun and will learn to be a good shot when people bend over to pick tomatoes. Maybe that will stop it.

Don

[Mantis]

Buy a big dog :-) Seriously, that is low. With family like that you should be able to tell them to P@ss Off. Oh, and get the sights on the BB gun sighted in eh.

[cottonpicker]

I must admit I don't have the problems you described.
( I'll "knock on wood" for good luck.) My tomato garden is about 25 feet from the street and I have not had any widespread thievery so far. Lived in this quiet neighborhood for 28 years & most of the neighbors are also "long-timers" and we know them well. I always share my bounty with all those around me. I usually just pick & quietly leave'em on their doorsteps. No one else gardens around here so they know who they came from.
During the summer they're usually "busy" out back around the pool. Last year I even planted 3 Sungold plants next to the sidewalk for passers-by and no one took them!! If any were "missing", the number was so small that I couldn't detect it. I WAS surprised.

[TomatoDon]

You are right Mantis, but I just hate a family fuss, and I kept my mouth shut. And I quit growing tomatoes in town for two years. I've got the thing pretty well fenced off now with a good gate. Out of sight, out of mind I hope for them.

No telling how many hundreds of good tomatoes left that patch the years I worked it. So far no one has asked, no one has said thank you, and certainly no one has offered even a tomato sandwich in return. Some of the family makes great sweet pickles and relish and do a lot of canning. So far no one has offered me a thing.

But I'm doing my Heirloom tomato patch in town this year. And I'm closing the privacy gate and putting up the sign anyway. It really made me mad when we tried to give them such nice plants that year and they wouldn't take them (one took a couple), and then we planted the rest, did all the work, and they kept stripping the patch of the biggest and best. Seems everytime I went out there the good stuff was gone. They got the first of the sweet corn, too, and anything else they wanted. Take, take, take. So, I moved my operation to the farm and had some good tomatoes that we actually got to eat.

I hope to have some good pictures to post for you all here in the summer. Am going to try to have the first tomato in town again. Seeds will be started as soon as they get here.

Don

[spudleafwillie]

Glenn,
Maybe a sign worded as follows "WARNING DO NOT EAT", THESE TOMATOES ARE EXPERIMENTAL AND HAVE AN INTERNAL SYSTEMIC INSECTICIDE THAT IS POSIONOUS TO HUMANS WHEN EATEN"

How about a portable recorder activated with a motion detector and a message as follows
Stop,These tomatoes are not free for the taking your picture is being taken by a hidden camera for evidence
of theft"

IF all else fails, maybe a 12 gauge shotgun and rocksalt filled shells.
Good luck with the mater-thugs.
Spud

[Andrey_BY]

Funny By the way, most of our seed companies which distribute green colored tomato varieties have comments on their package like "The only tomatoes won't be stolen"

[Dunkel]

I'm lucky enough to live in a small mountain town where most everyone has a small garden. At the very least everyone has a couple of tomato plants. I have only 2 neighbors that can see my garden and we always comment on each others efforts. It doesn't take long to find out what they like. LOL "Those are some pretty big maters you got growing there." So when we have had our first couple we give the neighbors a few. Sometimes they will say "Are those pumpkins you got going down there?" "No Summer Squash" I'd say. "Wow they are big plants." "You like squash?" "Oh yes!" "I'll give you some when they start producing." "Thank you." Be careful in doing this! The neighbor may become your enemy when those squash start producing 5-6 a day! LOL

[GreenInk]

Oh, Glenn, that's so low.
I guess being two mile out of town with a nosy, noisy dog helps.
My only thieves are blackbirds.
Penny.

[dokutaaguriin]

How about a few signs placed so that your vistors can't miss them that might say something like:
Proper etiquette dictates that you speak with the owner of these tomatoes BEFORE YOU HELP YOURSELF.

Jeff, whose greenhouse can be locked but has yet to use it

[michael johnson]

Glenn I realy found your post so funny I am still laughing about it now, I am realy gonna get myself a bunch of tomatoes this summer and go visiting some of the choice widows and floosies in my area in the hope my tomatoes will influance the outcome of my feeble excuse for the visit.

[Grub]

Glenn,

It might interest you to know that I noticed in a huge new fruit-and-veg barn and deli near my house that, among the spread of tomatoes on sale, were some good-looking ones from, amen, New Zealand. I'm betting they were from your patch. Keep up the good work. My family are locusts too.

Regards, Grub

[clay199]

Glenn,
The farmer's supply stores here sell motion activated sprinklers. The sensors can be set to work in the daytime. I would suggest setting something like that up, especially if you can make the route to the tomatoes congested enough that the bloody idiots have to come back and forth in one path.

Stores also have little beams that trigger bells here, hook one up that will quietly ring a buzzer so you know when someone is ripping you off and you can go deal with them effectively. Neighbours that steal are not neighbours.

[mdvpc]

Glenn-as you know I live in the Southwest-what we do with tomato rustlers is the same thing our ancestors did to horse thieves or cattle rustlers-string em up!

Its tough out here.