Wendy Ryan has been growing garlic in her front yard for seven years, and while she was fast asleep on Friday night, a garlic thief snatched all 150 bulbs from her garden.
She decided to take matters into her own hands by posting a warning on a neighbourhood Facebook group.
“I thought if it’s happening here, I’ll warn the people that’s part of that group and I said, ‘beware if you have a vegetable garden, all my garlic got stolen overnight,'” said Ryan.
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Ryan doesn’t sell her garlic, but according to experts, she lost over $300 worth of bulbs.
“It was just for us. We give it to neighbours, friends and family, because after a while we have so much,” she said. “It’s like what do we do with it? We just enjoy it.”
“People really like garlic and it’s worth money,” said Lise-Anne Briand, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue Garlic Festival organizer.
Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue will be hosting its 13th annual Garlic Festival on Saturday, and Ryan speculates her stolen garlic might be on the market.
“There’s a garlic festival down the street, so if they get enough they can get a stall and they can sell them and make a lot of money,” she said.
The festival’s organizers, on the other hand, said the odds of that happening are slim.
“To come to the garlic fest, you need to have a lot of quantities because we have over 6,000 people coming,” said Tia Bergeron.
But according to the Ste-Anne’s Market managers, garlic is a hot commodity.
“Around Christmas time there’s no more or not much of garlic available from Quebec,” said Briand. “It’s a really rare plant to find.”
“They want to reap the benefits without having the hard work,” said Bergeron. “Because it’s hard work to grow, it to dry it, and to clean it, and it’s a lot.”
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Ryan filed a police report on Wednesday after further thought.
“This could happen to others; I did it mostly for that,” she said.
Montreal police confirmed the case is under investigation but no further comment could be made.
Meanwhile, the award-winning gardener said this won’t stop her from growing her garlic.
“Of course,” she said. “If they steal it, that’s their problem.”