A group has been left “angry and upset” after ongoing damage to their community garden.
Vandals have been targeting the Fruit Bowls community garden in Lochee for months.
They have torn out plants, smashed pumpkins, damaged decorations and now have wrecked a poly-tunnel worth thousands of pounds.
Now the group are considering locking up the garden for safekeeping.
“I don’t know how much it will cost to repair the tunnel or even if we can just patch it up. It’s quite disheartening,” said Jen Moir, a member of the garden.
Jen said the damage started out small, adding: “Initially it was just silly things.
“We’ve got a big heavy duty hose from when it used to be a bowling green.
“It goes into the mains, so we can’t really store it anywhere. So that was getting turned on and left running and flooding the garden.
“Some little plants had been pulled out of the ground, then as the season has gone on, quite a big thing this year is pumpkins.
“A lot of people are growing them and there have been quite a lot of times we’ve come up to find them just strewn about, all smashed up.”
Plants destroyed
She continued: “So it’s been upsetting for a lot of the younger ones – well everyone really – but a lot of the kids were looking forward to sort of growing and carving their own pumpkins.
“There were other vegetables pulled out of beds and smashed and destroyed. There was a little scarecrow that was pulled out and broken.
“Recently we’ve had a few bits of damage to our poly-tunnel as well, which isn’t great because we’re just a community organisation and these things are quite expensive.
“The plastic at the back and on the door of the poly-tunnel has been torn.
“We had a few people up last weekend who were digging up the communal patch and clearing out the poly-tunnel.
“They put a lot of the produce out for people just to take from the table. When we went back the next day it had just been chucked about and broken.”
Community are devastated
Jen said the whole community was “devastated”.
“Everyone is really angry and upset,” she added.
“We keep trying to put our heads together and come up with ideas on how we can stop this.
“But other than completely fencing off and locking up the garden, which would be really expensive anyway, it kind of defeats the purpose of it being a community garden.
“Even though individual families and clubs have got their raised beds, and they manage those, there is a community patch and it’s just a lovely space and everybody is welcome to come in.
“We’ve got a pond and a picnic table and there’s a big space at the back which some of the other community groups have used – Lochee Family Fun have used the space for activities.
“We don’t want to lock it all off but we are getting to the point where we’re looking at that as an option and how we can fundraise for fencing.
“It’s just being ruined for everyone really.”
Jen hopes more people will share the community spirit and “show that it’s really not nice to do this”.
She added: “There’s a lot of work that’s gone into it and it’s a shame that it’s just all kind of getting destroyed.”