Dal community garden robbed

The community garden, in happier days. (Photo via SeeMoreGreen.wordpress.com)

On the weekend of Oct. 4, the Dalhousie community garden was robbed.

Ten large plants were uprooted,  including a pair of grapevines donated by Jöst Vineyards.

Rob MacNeish is a staff member at the DSU Sustainability Office in charge of policy and internal communications.

“After green week, which was two weeks ago now, we planted a bunch of stuff at a garden party. We’d gotten delivery, earlier in the summer, of close to $400 worth of different berry bushes—blueberries, cranberries, gooseberries, stuff like that,” says MacNeish. But when he came back to the garden four or five days later, much of their hard work was gone.

“Someone had come and dug up all the stuff we had planted, and had taken some of the stuff that was still in the pots just lying around.”

MacNeish estimates that nearly $200 worth of plants were stolen—but not everything is lost.

“We’re definitely expecting to replace these. That was the one thing: as bad as it was, they didn’t take all the plants. They weren’t the food bearing plants, they were more the ornamental ones,” says MacNeish. “We’re planning on doing a replant in the spring.”

The South End has had a spate of plant thefts, presumably stolen so they can be planted in the thief’s own garden. But this is the first time something has been stolen from a community garden.

“Usually community gardens get vandalized,” says Rob. “This is something completely different. And it’s someone who gardens, which is the other thing. You’d think that someone who gardens would know how much work it is to get a garden going.”

“To be stealing from a student project is pretty ridiculous.”

The garden opened in 2011 and is located on Henry Street, behind the computer science building.