Vandals Strike Community Garden

The Community Garden in Brook Run Park suffered extensive damage from vandals sometime Friday night or before dawn Saturday.

Most of the beds in the garden, which last year contributed donations of more than 3,000 pounds of produce to families in need in Dunwoody, appeared to have suffered varying degrees of damage.

Deer fencing that surrounds the 90-bed garden was stripped from supporting posts in some places; signage was destroyed; many hoops for winter row covers were snapped in half or twisted out of place; and trellises for climbing vegetables were pushed over.

Other damages included an overturned cistern; several raised growing areas were pushed over; an artichoke demonstration bed grown by Rod Pittman, who is in his 80s, was stomped flat; tools were taken from a tool shed and left out in the garden; a bird house was removed from the garden and thrown on the ground by the street; and vegetables were pulled up throughout the garden.

No tools or equipment appeared to have been stolen. But ragged angles from various garden supports that had been bent and twisted made it dangerous to walk through some areas of the garden.

Perhaps, though, the most heart-breaking damage was to two beds of lettuce that were going to be harvested this week and donated to the food pantry at Saint Patrick’s Episcopal Church. Much of the lettuce had been pulled up and thrown in walkways between bordered planting beds. The beds were being grown by Robert Lundsten, chief of staff to Commissioner Elaine Boyer.

The destroyed artichokes left garden members equally dismayed.

“This looks like wanton destruction to me,” Garden President Don Converse said as he surveyed the damage.

“This is just such a shame,” said Nicole Maslanka, who coordinates the production of the food pantry beds at the garden and in the park greenhouse a short distance away. “It’s unbelievable that people would do this.”

Other garden members expressed the same shock and disbelief as they began arriving at the garden throughout the day as word of the vandalism filtered out to members.

There have been previous instances of mischief at the garden, such as missing pumpkins and tomatoes, but nothing on the order of the weekend rampage has occurred before at the hillside site in Brook Run Park.

Many members were planning to spend much of the weekend at the garden, repairing damage, removing broken items that couldn’t be fixed and replanting what they could.

“It’s hard to believe that this has happened, but we'll get through it and everything will be fine” said Board Member Angela Minyard in an email to garden members.

Dunwoody police were called and are investigating. Anyone with information please call the Dunwoody Police Department 678-382-6919.