The cherry tomato vines

RIPE cherry tomatoes have been stolen from a community garden in Camden Town – where a third of everything grown is donated to a foodbank.

Volunteers of Elm Village Open Space Community Garden, who grow a range of vegetables and herbs, were “disheartened” to discover last Monday that all the ripe tomatoes on four vines had been pinched.

The project is part of Castlehaven Community Association. A third of produce grown goes towards community cooking sessions and a third is given to volunteers who have grown it.

Volunteers at the patch

Surplus is sold to make money for the project.

“It really affects the volunteers’ morale,” said environmental project manager Cathy Graham, who coordinates the gardening sessions.

“It’s been a challenging year. We’re slightly behind the growing calendar as we’ve had little rain. So we’re going to be forced to think creatively about what we can grow.”

As part of their “open space” agreement with Camden Council, since last autumn the garden has remained open to the public, which means no padlocks on the gates.

However, as a consequence, some members of the public have been littering and not “respecting the space”.