How Does Your Garden Grow?

Image: Fred Loads, Robert Stead, Alan Gemmell and Bill Sowerbuts present Gardeners' Question Time from the Art Gallery, Rochdale in October 1951.

How Does Your Garden Grow? was first broadcast on the Northern network on 9 April 1947. The programme changed its name to Gardeners' Question Time in 1951, and went nationwide in 1957. The wartime Dig for Victory campaign created an army of amateur gardeners in the postwar period, full of questions about gardening for pleasure. How Does Your Garden Grow? answered those questions.

The first edition came from the Smallshaw Garden Society in Ashton-Under-Lyne. The first question was put by the chairman of the association, Mr Hopwood - about the merits of double digging in an area with wet soil - and the second by his wife. The presenter was Bob Stead, with Tom Clark, Fred Loads, Dr F.W. Sansome and Bill Sowerbutts answering the questions. When Alan Gemmell joined Loads and Sowerbutts, a 30 year partnership began, during which time none of the panellists missed a single episode. The relationship between the three ensured the programme was lively and entertaining as well as informative.

Gardeners' Question Time survived the deaths of the early panellists, and continues to delight gardeners the length of the country, with tickets for recordings in great demand. The programme has been recorded in many unlikely locations apart from the regular gardening clubs, including a railway station and a zoo.