Sabotage

Apparently cauliflower is now not so popular as brocolli, the reason being that according to the health brigade brocolli being green has more something or other in it that is beneficial... blah, blah, blah.
But maybe it really has something to do with the growing of cauliflowers, because, though I did some gardening some years back, I was never successful with cauliflowers. In fact I only ever grew one that was a success; that is, one that had a good, solid, large head. All the others were either yellowish or had small heads or had heads that sprayed out like a bunch of flowers.
Anyway, I grew this big cauliflower in my allotment and one day I went there, armed with knife, to bring home the delightful vegetable only to find that someone had already been there before me and pinched it. It had been done with the expertise of a.... well, another gardener; it had been sliced off at its base with what I guessed was some kind of machette.
When I mentioned this to another gardener, suggesting that some kids had probably stolen it, he said "O no, one of our fellow allotmenters."
I was not completely convinced of this, feeling that surely gardeners have a code of behaviour etc etc etc. - until I was talking one day to an expert gardener in his splendid front garden (he always won city prizes for the best garden) when I saw a smudge-like, burnt patch about 18 inches in diameter on his magnificent lawn.
"Kids?" I asked.
"O no," he said. "A fellow competitor."