Carol Klein - Grow your own veg

I don't regard myself as a flower person, or a vegetable expert for that matter. The physical effort and creativity of growing, tending, cutting and pruning - these are the broken down tasks that give me a lot of satisfaction. I wonder if this is similar to the experience of chefs, painters and writers. It's not the finished article that matters but the production methods.

For this reason I have not always enjoyed television programmes about gardening, and some books for that matter. The dislike for such programmes reached its height when I began to have difficulty connecting with Alan Titchmarsh and Monty Don. The former because of his overbearing instructiveness on how to do things the right way (according to Titchmarsh). The latter because of his reach for perfection and satisfaction with his work that bordered on egotism.

If some of programmes are rock and roll, others just this side of smooth classics, Carol Klein's programme, Grow your own veg, was jazz. This was a visual treat of non instructive guidance. T.V. as mentor, not teacher. The concept is original and the producer has found a brilliant family and garden to use in its six week tour of vegetable growing leadership. The purpose of the programme being - how to introduce folk who don't normally grow vegetables, to this activity in their own back garden. The family of five with a busy lifestyle and a garden ususally used as a playground for the children are going to be the test family while two experts (with the RHS I think) are doing their own thing with a three metre square box system to see how easy it is to have an all year round rotation crop in the garden.

This is vegetable growing leadership by role modelling. Carol Klein does not pretend to be an expert but offers her approach to the task while supporting others to do the same. Asked by the family if she will keep coming back to help after their vegetable patch is completed Carol replies," I can see you are already able to do it for yourselves, you won't need me to come back." Klein does not presume to be didactic, probably because she appreciates that although gardening and growing is a science, it is not always accurate and you cannot always know the variations that will occur. "I've chosen this potato because of its taste. Some say the taste comes from the soil."

How do you introduce the viewer to growing vegetables ? With potatos and Jerusalem artichokes. "If you can't grow artichokes, you can't grow anything." Her friend inspires without telling you anything other than how to plant them. Nor does he need to. The most advanced information was the runner bean trench and its base material of cardboard, shredded paper and manure. Carol had explained this to the family who then without her presence just did exactly that.

To complement the creative photography there was a soundtrack that had at last found the 21st century.

I'm hooked - your verdict ?