Yesterday I discovered a stack of 50 - 3 gallon pots have been nabbed. I just ordered 100 last month and they came in 2 stacks of 50. Plenty of tools could have been snagged from an unlocked shed but the bandit chose plastic nursery pots? In 2010 I purchased 2 motion activated scarecrow sprinkers to deter the rabbits and gave up on them as I seemed to be the one getting wet, always forgetting to turn them off. Today they are coming back out for Operation Deadbeats. Just when you think you have seen, read or heard it all comes an article about Tide detergent being the hot item to steal. Some retailers are putting electronic tags on the jugs and some have resorted to keeping it behind glass. Even drug dealers want to be paid with Tide! I have had a new 100 foot hose stolen and plants dug from a donated bed but so far no Tide is MIA.

I hope you take a minute to review the article and photos of Hemorocallis Gall Midge damage here:
http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_d...

The article states it has been reported in the Pacific Northwest, and I am positive I had it here last year in DE and would not have known what it was until seeing the photos which look exactly like my buds did. It was helpful to know that the buds needed to be removed and destoyed. As the article states, there is no recommended pesticide. This year can only be better after last but should I have HGM again, I will be sure to get a sample to the co op extenstion for verification and also notify the AHS science committee.

First scape is just starting to form on Wallingford Wooly Bully.

Many thanks for this information. It is always good to have a
heads up. Wonder why someone wants Tide, or water hoses and
plastic pots more than tools.

Will be on the look out for the gall midge. Excellent info.

Pot grow ops.

Dormantsrule, thanks for that information, I sure will be on the lookout for those nasty little pests.

Big bottles of Tide retail for nearly $20 according to the article (I don't buy it, so no clue). If you get it for free and sell it for 5-10 on black market, that's a nice profit margin. Someone walked out of one store with SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of Tide, IIRC.

Ok, $6000 worth of Tide! Really??? People never cease to amaze me. If they will ingest rat posion to try to get hight, I guess stealing Tide is not even high on the list for being DUMB!

I send a wish out for the poor person that was desperate enough to steal black plastic pots to hopefully grow enough plants to feed them. I have stoped on the side of the road and picked up pots that had blown off a truck or whatever. I felt like I was gaining a pot and picking up trash off the road. But, to go onto someone's property and take them, no way!!

Wonder what we'll see next???

Blessing to all, Mona

Great article, thanks for posting it.

I use Tide, but if the price gets too expensive, I can certainly choose a less expensive laundry soap..... ~Jan

Don't say you use it anywhere on the internet. Never know if the Tide Thieves are lurking. It is the stupidest thing I ever heard of, but when you think of the money to be made selling it at 100% profit it makes me ill.

I don't use Tide. The fragrance doesn't agree with me.
Wow, didn't know it cost that much.

from the email making the rounds...

Tide is valuable, quickly consumable and easily removable from store shelves, all traits that make it attractive to professional thieves who sometimes load up carts and walk out the door to waiting getaway cars.

In West St. Paul, Minn., a Walmart inventory revealed about $25,000 worth of Tide lost over little more than a year, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported in February. Police there charged a man with felony theft, saying he loaded carts with at least $6,339 worth of Tide over a month, walking out the door without paying.

In Cincinnati, the home of Procter & Gamble, 103 incidents of Tide disappearing from supermarkets, convenience stores and drug stores have been reported since mid-2010, according to Cincinnati Police data.

On Sept. 25, someone walked away from a drugstore with a jar of ranch dressing, a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew and five 40-ounce bottles of Tide, police reported.

I use purex free & clear, and pay less than $10 for the big bottles

I use the All free and clear. Little less expensive than Tide, but still good. It is, indeed, amazing what people will steal regardless of the practicality or danger.

I just started using the All Free this winter. I had such problems with my skin itching that I thought I would switch detergents.

Our Sunday paper had an article about Tide theives. Amazing just how low people will go. I'm really at a loss to discribe how feel about this. In the paper it said that people are paying for their illegal drugs with the stolen Tide. Everytime I think I;ve heard it all, up pops another!!

Blessings, Mona

Just an aside - my daughter, even as a baby, has problems with dryer sheets. She can only use liquid fabric softener on her clothes In fact, when she was in army basic training years ago, I can still remember a phone call I got from her - she was complaining about a rash wherever her underwear was - but not where her underwear wasn't.(they washed their own underwear, military washed their uniforms).

She had started using dryer sheets - and obviously never 'outgrew' that allergy. Apparently there is an ammonium salt (that's what the doctor told me when she was a baby) that is in the dryer sheets that she is allergic to.

So, for others that may have some type of rash due to laundering, remember it may be due to the fabric softener/ dryer sheets - and not just the laundry detergent itself.

By the way, my absolute favorite laundry detergent is Oxydol - which is getting almost impossible to find - and I have never seen it in liquid form - which I prefer. I too, use Tide most of the time. ~Jan

Maybe the dryer sheets are the culprit Jan. I think it might be msg too. I never had an allergy to it before but I have been watching to see if I get the itching and rash after eating something with msg in it and sure enough I do.

If it wasn't for my daughter, I never would have thought of dryer sheets either. It's easy to blame the detergent, when it may be something as simple as changing from dryer sheets, to liquid fabric softener.

By the way, I do use the dryer sheets at work and at our cottage to 'try' to keep the mice away - the more fragrance, the better. I think it helps, and is certainly safer than the mothballs we used to use! ~Jan

A really bad case of thrips can make the buds of a daylily look like the buds damaged by gall midge. They suck the juice right out of the bud and deform it.

Sherry - My test would be looking for tiny maggots inside buds for HGM.

I can't afford Tide, but I'd never steal it

Seedsower said:I can't afford Tide, but I'd never steal it

I'd never use it... have never really liked Tide, so can't fathom someone stealing it

I have never liked Tide either.