BBC Documentaries

Allotment Wars (2013x14)

: 22, 2013

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.