Monty Don – Growing Out Of Trouble

05 December, 2006 by The_Boss

BBC 2 Thursday 7th December 2006 9:00pm - 10:00pm

Gardener Monty Don sets up a project to help offenders turn their lives around and also helps a group of drug addicts break their habit in a new series.

Monty believes addicts can break their cycle of crime and drug use through working the land and wants to establish a smallholding, complete with livestock, with the help of a group of offenders. He wants to teach them how to grow vegetables and raise livestock and, if successful, he hopes to set up a national network of farms with the objective of helping people in adversity through working the soil.

The idea comes from his own experience of recovering from depression in the late Eighties when he transformed his life through gardening. Monty believes in the therapeutic qualities of working the land and the West Mercia Probation Trust will fund the project for at least one year.

But Monty must first find a suitable plot of land. After scouring the Herefordshire countryside, he finally discovers the perfect site near a small village. Having met his team of prospective workers and shown them the piece of land, enthusiasm is running high.

However, word soon spreads in the local village that offenders are coming to work on nearby land and residents are not happy with the idea. The parish council lets villagers decide on whether they are happy for the project to go ahead. If the villagers reject the scheme, it could spell doom for Monty's smallholding before it has even started. He could find himself back on the road searching for another site, with time and funding running out.