Can you imagine a 26-part children's show about not just gardening, but about allotments? Well, if you could watch the BBC's children's channel CBeebies, you'd see one. Matthew Appleby writes about the new show.
The 26-part children's show features an allotment looked after Mr Bloom filled with talking vegetables: a shy cabbage, mischievous radishes, a comedy runner bean and a singing aubergine.
Garden writer Dawn Isaacs has given horticultural advice to the live action and puppet series.
Set in a colourful, fertile allotment run by the green-fingered Mr Bloom (Ben Faulks), Mr Bloom's Nursery, aims to show how young children can learn from the experience of nurturing plants and vegetables.
In each episode, a team of young helpers, or "tiddlers", come to the allotment to help Mr Bloom tend his plants and produce. But when they add leaves and clippings to his homemade "compostarium", a group of lively young vegetable puppets spring to life who the children play with, teach and care for.
Children will learn a variety of important lessons including the importance of drinking water when it is hot and sunny to understanding that growing takes time as well as simple vegetable-growing tips.
Perhaps the show will be available on dvd. Perhaps the CBC would like to do a show like this? Maybe First Lady Michelle Obama? What are the chances? You can read more about it at the BBC website.
-Fiona Gilsenan
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