Garden And Gardener

Everything for the Gardener and their Garden

Allotment Wars

by Diane - January 22nd, 2013.
Filed under: allotment.

Have you had fallings out on your allotment site?

Allotment wars looks at some of the issues that cause havoc

BBC Description of program:
Dishing the dirt on the battles being fought on plots across the UK. Filmed over seven months, during the planting, growing and harvesting seasons, Allotment Wars shows what happens when strangers are thrust together on the land with too much time on their hands and too many sharp tools.

Plotholders often face attacks from outsiders. In Kent, following a series of break-ins, two brave gardeners hunt a suspect in the local woods. However in Devon, there is a civil war brewing between the plotholders themselves. Prize vegetables are being snatched and sheds ransacked, and it looks like an inside job. What can the site committee do to combat the saboteurs?

Nearly 100,000 Britons are on allotment waiting lists. This high demand means that the pressure to maintain plots is equally high. If allotmenteers fail, eviction looms. A young plotholder in Manchester struggles to avoid such a fate.

In Newcastle, two men fight for the title of Champion City Gardener. Regular participants in the fiercely competitive vegetable shows, these rivals have not spoken for years and tension mounts as they face each other at the annual City Allotment and Garden Show.

Some people think this is over-dramatising allotments in a bad way. But it will show things that have happened to people I know online – arson that seems to be due to internal disputes. Power mad committee members ignoring rules and much more!