Alison Jones meets garden guru Alan Titchmarsh who wants people to make best use of their back yards.

Gardening guru Alan Titchmarsh is a man on a mission.

He wants people to look to their own back yards for both comfort and provisions in these times of austerity and turn their hobby into a resource.

“The grow your own movement is well under way. Over the last couple of years vegetable seeds have outsold flower seeds.

“Few people can be self sufficient but the majority of us can grow something – a few lettuce leaves, some tomatoes, some courgettes.”

The British passion for gardening seems to be unabated – tickets for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show sold out in a record 16 days.

Titchmarsh is back on television this Friday with Love Your Garden (ITV, 8pm) where the focus will be on domestic gardens.

“It’s for people who might be intimidated by the more serious gardening programmes. It makes it more accessible. There is a huge difference between making something easy to understand and popularising it and dumbing down.

“My aim is always to get as many people gardening as possible.”

He also believes in getting them early, which is why he has relaunched the Campaign for School Gardening, together with the RHS and Waitrose. It aims to get young children out of the classroom and into the open air, cultivating their own little patch.

“I think the campaign now has about 12,000 schools (involved). We need to get children reconnecting with the outdoors so they are not fearful of it, so they understand it and learn to love it. It is important they learn where things come from – that carrots come out of the ground and tomatoes from a plant.

“I think there is more interest in gardening as an educational tool and I want it to be seen as a career. You don’t have to stay in the potting shed, there are other areas of horticulture, whether it is lecturing or writing.”

He recently took umbrage at Prime Minister David Cameron’s remarks when, outlining plans to enlist the long-term unemployed to do community work, he lumped gardening in with litter picking as an “unskilled activity”.

Titchmarsh hit back during a speech to the RHS saying this overlooked the benefits it offered to both the individual and society and claiming it could be a useful tool in the rehabilitation of prisoners who were less likely to re-offend if they were diverting their energies into something productive and rewarding.

“It is a great mistake to regard it as unskilled. I spoke to a lawyer friend who said he had someone come round to do his garden and he had to pay them £15 an hour.

‘‘I said ‘You are baulking at paying £15 after he has learnt his trade. How much do you charge?’. He charged £650 an hour. I said ‘Can you grow a cabbage?’ and he said ‘No’. I said ‘Well, I rest my case”.

Titchmarsh, who as a teenager seemed destined for a job tending the municipal greenery of Ilkley after he was taken on as an apprentice gardener for the council, studied for three different horticultural qualifications.

Since then his career trajectory has seen him rise from a slot on Nationwide to one of television’s busiest broadcasters, fronting gardening and non-gardening programmes, hosting chat shows and rubbing shoulders with royalty. He is also a novelist.

He admits to being “quite astounded about where gardening has led”.

This year he was selected for the daunting honour of interviewing Prince Philip in a programme to mark his 90th birthday. “I’d met him once or twice but he is renowned to be not keen on being interviewed, as well as being challenging. It wasn’t easy but we got something.”

He puts his success as an armchair interrogator down to his affable approach.

‘‘Generally I think you can learn a lot more by being friendly. If you are more relaxed with people they’ll unwind a little.”

He has also discovered that gardening remains a great ice-breaker.

“It is a useful as a way of bonding. Whether they are pop stars, actors or musicians, they almost always say ‘I am glad I have a chance to talk to you because I am having a problem with me dahlias’.

When I was appearing on Breakfast Time years and years ago I remember being plonked down next to Elton John and thinking ‘Oh goodness. What will I talk to him about?’. Then he turned round and said ‘Tell me about my maidenhair fern, it’s going brown’. It is common ground.”

* Alan Titchmarsh will in Birmingham next Wednesday and Thursday for some spirited back and forth with gardening enthusiasts at BBC Gardeners’ World Live (NEC, June 15-19). To book tickets call 0844 581 1340 or look up www.bbcgardenersworldlive.com