Roger Moroney: Why the telly turned me off

FRESH APPROACH: Jamie Oliver's home-grown vege is as close as it gets to a gardening show.PHOTO/FILE

I think the television planners and programmers are doing a good job - in getting people to abandon their living rooms in favour of looking for something more entertaining to do outside.

It is a summer thing, of course, for when the autumn arrives and when winter drops in like an unwelcome rodent in the pantry the programming does tend to get a little more "inside" friendly.

Shows that possess more freshness and viewability. More entertaining, more colourful.

Not the smothering of feature films which last twice the original length due to the intrusion of ads, the mindless crime shows, the silly talent quests and general flotsam and jetsam.

Good on them for creating within the television populace the urge to get out of that chair and get out of that room ... and get out into the outdoors while the summer sun is shining (most of the time) and the landscape is warm and fresh.

Of course I could be wrong.

Maybe they just throw in a pile of anything close to hand, set the auto button to play, and all clear off ... outside into the grand summertime.

But hey, who can blame them?

Get out into the garden, I say - and if you haven't got a garden, then dig one.

Or if you haven't got any room, shoot out and get some cheap buckets and a couple of bags of potting mix and plant food and voila ... you've got half-a-dozen little mobile gardens that you can pick up and shift into the sunny spots all day.

We did that with tomatoes - those little cherry ones which are superb.

Each garden (bucket) has produced about 15 to 20.

Meanwhile, battling the ever-invading weeds and often irregular watering, the actual garden down the back which was dug from dodgy lawn and fed with fertiliser to bring it up to scratch struggles to get up to scratch - because I do not have green hands.

Other people grow capsicums the size of ... capsicums. Mine take the golf-ball path.

Mind you, the mint, the chives and the onions went well and we got three or four good cabbages.

I suspect I have digressed a tad here, but the point is, outdoors is good and gardens are good.

But where are the gardens on television?

The closest we get is when mainly kitchen-bound chaps such as Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall raise a glass to fresh, home-grown produce from their gardens.

We once had gardening shows. Maggie Barry fronted one and for anyone as old, or older, than me the name James Stirling and the black and white show In Your Garden may ring a distant bell.

With his grand Scottish accent he embraced gardening and provided simple, easy advice in getting the old crops up and running out the back.

We need some gardening shows because going by the latest health surveys a lot of people in this land are devoid of a good diet.

Grow it modestly, greenly and cheaply, and you're getting somewhere.

Forget talent quests and who can do up a house best.

Grab three or four known faces and set them to work ... creating their own gardens alongside an expert gardener who shows how it's done.

And everyone can have a go.

Send in a picture of your garden and win a prize - whatever, anything to get people outside and inspired to dig and till.

But such shows are likely to be seen as drab as they won't allow people to scream and cry ... such is the state of television.

Jamie at Home, Prime at 6.30pm Saturday:

Yes, I know, it's a cooking show. Yet another cooking show. But the point of difference here is the fact Mr Oliver stages this from his own home, and at his own home he has planted a garden. He grows his own fruit and vegetables and happily plucks, digs and snaps off what he needs for his home-made spreads. Literally home-made. It's as close to a garden show as we've got.