Spalding Plant and Vegetable Auction in Lincolnshire is the oldest market of its kind in the UK, having started in 1948. There are three sales a week, selling as many as 1,000 bags and boxes of veg and up to 16,000 plants, shrubs and trees in a day. It needs two auctioneers to do it. The auction is here for a reason - a quarter of all UK veg and plant production happens in the Lincolnshire region, and in some areas one in four people work in agriculture.

Local seller Carl Inkley grows over a million plants a year in his nursery, but there's lots at stake at the auction, as he needs good prices to pay the staff wages. Buyers John Cullen and Hugh Faulds recently moved to the area from London, seeking more space and the amazing rich soil for their new landscape gardening business. In contrast, veg seller David Dickinson has been coming to this auction for over four decades and relies on it for pretty much all his income. Show less