Pam Moore wrote:
On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:55:19 +0100, "Kate Morgan"
wrote:

My daughter has had her allotment ruined, she grows flowers shrubs etc. at
home and keeps the allotment for vegetables and soft fruit, She is very keen
gardener and competes at local flower shows etc. Her allotment is or was
organic and she grows herbs amongst the veg, I am telling you this cos it
says the sort of gardener she is. However a few days ago someone put
weedkiller all over the plants and yesterday after being away for a camping
weekend she found that someone had pulled up all the plants and burnt the
lot. She knows who it was but cannot contact them, the fact that the person
involved is of limited intelligence makes it almost impossible to take the
matter further. I feel so sad for her :-(

kate

Kate, I feel so sorry for your daughter, being an allotment holder
myself. Is the allotment site not secure? Ours has high fencing
round, and only allotment holders can enter. The cost was partly paid
for by the council, as we had had a lot of theft.
She SHOULD contact the Police. She does not have to say who she
suspects. This person could do it again if he feels he's got away
with it. He needs to know it's not acceptable behaviour.
Alternatively, (I could not envisage doing this myself!) could she
befriend him, and ask him to help her on the allotment? Would that
work? Certainly get the allotment holders and committee involved.

The best thing to plant to test the soil for weedkiller damage, would
be quick germinating things like nasturtiums.

Or mustard and cress which is very sensitive to residual weedkiller and
has physically smaller seeds.

How quickly did the plants succumb to the weedkiller? Did it kill grass
as well as crops? Was new growth fast and distorted, suddenly dried up
or yellowing over a period of a couple of weeks? (those are indicative
of the typical domestic weedkillers)

Good luck to her. Keep us informed.

Hard to know which course of action is best, but I would hope that the
allotment association would rally round under these trying
circumstances. If there were witnesses to this deliberate act of
vandalism or threats made then I would report it to the police.

Regards,
Martin Brown