Allotment programme

[Nennypops]

Can't remember it's name, but it's the latest attempt at the Bake-Off Format based round allotment gardens, started tonight.

Seems to me it's all a bit of a mish-mash. The contestants have to demonstrate not only their gardening skills, but also skills in things like cooking and various garden-based crafts like flower arrangements. Is there seriously any reason why a good gardener should be able to make a florist-standard bunch of flowers and and excellent fruit curd?

Still, I'll give it time, there's some quite interesting information coming out of it, and I like the oldest judge.

My parents had an allotment and now I have one. I was disappointed in the programme, what's with the flower arranging and sweet peas and it's roses next week? It seems a huge waste to send a couple home just because they can't arrange flowers and make curds. What has that got to do with how well you can grow edible stuff?
I wanted to see their growing techniques for the fruit and veg, see their blueberry and blackcurrant bushes, not just see if they could make something they maybe wouldn't bother with at home out of a few of them. On an allotment having a healthy bush producing lots of disease free berries should be the most important thing.
I'd have preferred to see how the fruit bushes got on week by week in the jam section, how they protected them from pests, the different layouts of the allotments, the fruit bushes given a score and then they could have a masterchef bit if they must.
Flowers should be judged for their ability as companion and insect attracting plants or for their edible flowers.
I was surprised none of the jam makers used a jam thermometer as well. I love mine.

It's. toning to do with allotments, for a start.

However I didn't watch it, I knew all about it when they were recruiting and I stayed well clear...believe it or not last night When it aired I was at my actual allotment, weeding!

I lasted 15 minutes then turned over. Needed more humour like Mel and Sue or Claudia to make me care about radishes yawn.

Nothing to do with allotments....grr

I wonder who it's aimed at? Not enough on the actual allotment for allotment holders and not entertaining enough for non gardeners.
It seems too focussed on fruit and produce show type judging which is a minority sport amongst gardeners and allotment holders.
How many good sized radishes and how tasty would have been more interesting and seeing which techniques worked best, who put most effort in etc.

I also wonder with them growing soft fruit in just a few weeks if some contestants are just throwing money at the allotment. I plant my soft fruit bushes in the dormant season and the first year they are usually getting established and produce very little. If you buy a huge container plant you'll obviously get more but it's not really down to anything the allotment holder has done.

Great British Middle Class Fad.

I was disappointed. I wanted to see how the fruit and veg was growing too. I felt when they showed the radishes they should have cut them open so we could look inside.

I imagine bar strawberries and raspberries the other fruits weren't gown on the allotment as they would need far longer than 16 weeks to establish and produce a decent crop!

Good Lord it was dull!

It would have been far more interesting if they had picked 10 non gardening families and given them a plot each and set them veggies/fruit to grow over a year.

It might even have inspired the odd novice like myself to give it a go if there had been some successes along the way.

Boring drivel for the middle class yet again.

I agree, I think the growing of the fruit and veg is the interesting bit and seeing how a few people cope with dividing up their land, working out what to grow where, trying to transplant and thin stuff, organic v nonorganic would be interesting to me (and probably deadly dull to people not into gardening). Not trying to pick 7 identical sweet peas for a plant beauty contest

Agree with everyone else: it was dull. As it happens I do make jam and what-have-you desperately trying to whittle down the annual blackcurrant glut but blimey, it's tedious watching someone whisk a bowl of curd

I have serious garden envy though, the grounds where they put the allotments is to die for. And it was all so beautifully dug over for them, too.

Found myself wondering idly today what happens when someone gets kicked out. Is their allotment allowed to go to seed with weeds flourishing, or does some lucky person get to take over the fruit (literally) of all their labours so far?

Forget this and watch the film "Grow Your Own". Corny but fun. The "Bake Off" format must have its day soon

I like the Bake Off format, but it hasn't worked for this. Maybe they'll have to go for art or something? In some ways I could fancy knitting and crochet, but it would be just too slow.

Agree with all the comments.
It should be called 'Best in Show' or somesuch, as it's about village shows rather than how they get there. Really, do I really need to see a series of 6 beans some of which are straighter than others. No. But I'd have liked to see the contestants be given the same number of bean seeds, and see how got the most produce from it and how - and how they coped with pests, weather, different varieties on offer etc.

Kirstie Allsopp's thing about shows was better. This is neither here nor there.

I'm glad I didn't bother to watch it now - sounds dire.

we lasted about ten minutes and gave up and that ten minutes was spent discussing how nice the wall was and what would we plant etc etc . Dull and dumbed-down

I'm not a hard core gardener so we saw it in a different light to the people above. It can't be easy to produce this show given that the actual work is done over such a long time and then they have to produce items for judgement over a particular weekend. We thought it was really interesting last night, particularly the bit about roses and their pests.

I agree we're not keen on the flower arranging but they have to have some sort of jeopardy in the show otherwise it wouldn't be a competition.

I'm sure it is a disappointment for those that have allotments but for entertainment we're sticking with it. Don't forget that it is quite a long series and I'm sure the producers will touch on the various aspects of gardening over the coming weeks.

I think that the amount of gardening shown has improved a bit. There still isn't enough for my liking and I think that the grow section should have 2 subcategories(with 2 best in show awards) to make it equal to the flower arranging and cooking sections.
In addition to the award for producing a perfect whatever there should also be an award for the couple with the best crop of that fruit or veg. "Best" can include healthiness of crop, amount of crop, tastiness of crop etc.
I think the flower arranging and flowers in general should have been in a different programme though.
I think the wrong pair of women went this week, I'm glad the 2 blokes are still there.

I can't see how they can even have tended their plots; Mapledurham is in Oxfordshire, the contestants were from Manchester, Birmingham and Kent. A real missed opportunity I think.

I presume they were all unemployed or had jobs where they could take long sabbaticals.
It's a shame they couldn't have taken the top dozen from the allotment waiting list in Oxfordshire. If they spent every weekend there it was manageable from further afield. It seems a waste to remove some people so early from the competition if they'd spent 4 months on the allotment and had a bad first week. I'd rather they'd not bothered with the knock out stage until they'd had 4 or 5 weeks, they could have given them cumulative marks and then just knocked out 5 couples at once. That seems better value for the contestents who put all that time into the allotment.

i have watched them all but only cos there is bog all else on!!

It's too much of Fern Britton being patronising or nastily winsome, the whole format is just too slow to work successfully with the Bake Off formula

And you never see any actual gardening...it's all instruction of things to do with oasis, sarky comments about bendy beans and jam jars full of slop.

Also, unless you are growing stuff for the Village show you are just going to harvest and eat your radishes (beans/onions/gladiolis ;) ) whenever the hell they are ready instead of stringing them out to Week Whatever for judging.

Thane Prince eats like a creepy doll from a teaspoon and the florist guy is frankly ridiculous.

However that comedy aubergine was hysterically funny this week. :o

It's hardly about gardening at all. I'm only sticking with it because DD (8) likes it, it has made her very keen to spend more time on the allotment. Too much Jack of all trades, master of none.