Growing veg is fab — but can Fern make us EAT it?

tHe sun came out at the weekend, so I succumbed to garden centre impulse purchasing.

you know the story — a trip to get one ‘essential’ (cleaner to remove the green slime brought on by the wet winter from the patio) ends up with me pushing a trolley full of plants and a bill for £83. How did that happen?

tomorrow sees the start of National Gardening Week, with events taking place up and down the country, from Woking to Wrexham, Harrogate to Handcross. experts are on call to answer queries and before next Friday I am bound to be back at another garden centre buying even more plants.

tomorrow, the BBC is kicking off its much-publicised follow-up to Bake Off, the Great Allotment Challenge, hosted by Fern Britton (above), with a judging panel including the Queen’s former head gardener.

I come f r om a f amily of vegetable growers: my paternal grandfather and father spent every free hour digging, nurturing rows of potatoes, leeks, wonderful lettuces and carrots, probably as a way to escape their carping wives.

I’ve already planted out some broad beans on my plot in yorkshire, as well as cabbages, l eeks, l ettuces and onions. Baby beetroot plants are on stand-by in the cold frame.

It could hail or snow right up to early May and I could lose the lot, but that’s the risk we brave gardeners are prepared to take to get ahead. If the temperature drops, I shall be swaddling the plants in fleece and polythene, and telling them to buck up.

It’s weird the BBC are launching this show when we are eating less fruit and veg than ever — on average, just 3.9 portions out of our recommended five a day.

Meanwhile, some experts think five is not enough, claiming we really need seven or even ten.

I t hi nk Fern wil l be presiding over the green fingers equivalent of cookery porn: we’ll be salivating over the marrows and aubergines, but how many viewers will eat them, l et alone grow them from scratch? very few.