BBCTV gardening gets real

Sun, Apr 11, 2010

Climate Change

The enigmatic Alan Titchmarsh is probably my favourite TV gardening personality. He always combines a wealth of knowledge with a great deal of flair and humour – wish he was still doing the Friday night homage to gardening on BBC Gardeners World. Watching yet another garden being built from scratch at Greenacre is very sleep inducing on a Friday night.

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What we need is some more imaginative filming, ideally in a “real” garden that has not been created just for the cameras.

There is one new gardening series on the BBC that has managed to acheive this.The Edible Garden,  hosted by Alys Fowler in her own small garden in the middle of Birmingham gets my vote for being the best gardening programme at the moment because:

*It is realistic and uses the size of small space that most people have to work with .

*It is authentic as it belongs to Alys and is where she lives her life – not some tv set created just for the programme.

*It costs very little, no investment in raised beds or designs – she works with just a small narrow garden.

*There are tons of great ideas that anyone can try -especially growing pea shoots on a window sill

* She probably appeals to the 20/30 year old  gardener, often alienated by more traditional TV gardening

Most of all she really makes me want  to get digging in my new allotment which is surely what any gardening programme should do? Have a look at the first episode about peas and beanshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s08bx/The_Edible_Garden_Peas_and_Beans/

Read more about  Alys’ advice for turning the smallest garden into a feast of food this summerhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/gardening/article-1256629/How-garden-eat-Gardeners-World-Alys-Fowler-believes-patch-productive-AND-pretty.html

As a nation of gardeners we deserve more of this style of programme. UK foodies have any number of well made, inviting programmesabout cooking  but,  gardening programmes never seem to deliver the same range and quality. Here is a summary of gardening TV over the next few months http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2010/apr/08/gardening-television-alys-fowler

What do you think about gardening programmes on UK TV?

This post was written by:

- who has written 872 posts on My Climate Change Garden.

I am not an experienced gardener - more of an enthusiastic amateur who learns by trial and error and who is keen to "manage" the effects of shifting weather patterns on my garden. Writing this blog is my passion and it has evolved over 12 years to inspire engagement with climate change outside our back doors, in our personal gardens and green spaces. My mission is to fertilise and expand this platform to grow a community of global gardeners communicating about the effects of climate change on our plants and exploring how each individual can make small changes in our lives to become more sustainable. The future of our gardens and #OurPlanet is in our hands - please plant your own seeds for our collective sustainable future.

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1 Comments For This Post

  1. Anna B Says:

    This is a really interesting post. I completely agree. I think as more and more people start getting into gardening in any space they can get they will go beyond mainstream ideas from gimmicky TV programs. The 20/30 yr old gardeners plant for food and plant for bees and we should be encouraging that. Really thought provoking post.