Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú

Ellie’s off the Botanical Gardens in Bristol to find out more about the plants and herbs that surround us. Curator, Nicholas Wray shows, Ellie how there’s far more to some of the old remedies than we originally thought. From sage to rosemary, Ellie learns how they’ve been used through history and also discovers the calming effect of gin on those about to go into battle!

James Wong is in the Brecon Beacons visiting a daffodil farm, this flower maybe a symbol of Wales, but none of these are going to end up in vases. Kevin Stephens is growing daffodils for a chemical called Galantamine, which is used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. James learns how to harvest the chemical from these fields of yellow and then meets up with Keith. Keith lives with Alzheimer’s and explains how the Galantamine pills he takes everyday have helped him live a full and happy life.   

Anita Rani meets artist, designer and ‘farmer’ Gavin Munro who is growing a rather unusual crop at his 2.5 acre holding in central Derbyshire – chairs! Using flexible tree types such as ash and sycamore, Anita learns how Gavin shapes young saplings around plastic moulds to ultimately make whole tables, chairs and lamps from a single piece of wood. As Gavin takes Anita through the various stages of this painstaking process, she finds out that patience really is the name of the game when it comes to creating green and sustainable furniture. Just one of Gavin’s pieces takes 5-8 years to grow!

Ellie meets up with Matthew and Ian Pennington who grow all their own food and veg which is then served up in their restaurant. But now they’ve started fermenting their produce to help them through those months of the year when there’s not much is coming out of the garden. Beetroot is on the menu today, but after being fermented with yoghurt whey, how will it taste? Ellie’s about to find out.

We can ³ó±ð²¹°ùÌýthe sounds of spring and see the landscape changing – but does the season have a distinctive smell? John Craven meets biochemist George Dodd, otherwise known as Dr Smell! George is a world authority on the science of smell and he's been so inspired by the scents of the Highlands in spring that he’s recreated them in a perfume. John accompanies him on a scent trail before joining Adrian Hollister, owner of potentially the most remote perfume studio in the world, to put them in a bottle.

Matt Baker is in the Chilterns to meet with an entrepreneurial farming family who have been expanding their farm for the last 150 years. They now produce their own cold-pressed rapeseed oil and use it to create their own mayonnaise. Matt gets hands on at the farm to see how none of the rapeseed goes to waste and later he puts rapeseed oil to the test alongside old favourite, olive oil.

In a school glasshouse in the Mendip Hills, Ellie discovers a group of school children working to save some of the world’s rarest orchids from extinction. It’s the brainchild of teacher Simon Pugh-Jones, who’s been growing orchids since he was a teen. Now he’s keen to pass that passion onto his pupils and they’ve become so successful that one pupil is about to reintroduce an orchid to its native Brazil that hasn’t been recorded there since 1935!

In the fields of Hampshire, one traditional yet forgotten British crop is making a comeback. Anita Rani is meeting Sir Michael Coleman of the famous mustard dynasty to talk not mustard… but peppermint. Anita learns why Sir Michael decided to bring back the quintessentially British ‘Black Mitcham’ peppermint to UK soil and how it fell out of fashion for so long. Anita then meets farm manager, Ian Margetts, to try her hand at harvesting the peppermint crop, ready for distilling.

Ellie catches up with the appropriately named Flora Arbuthnott, Flora’s been making natural dyes for years and what she can’t forage, she grows. Sunflower seeds for purple as well as roses for pinks and reds are just a couple of the plants at Flora’s fingertips. Together they dye a piece of raw silk to see how it’s done, but what can you use to get the most difficult colour, green?

Ever heard of ‘Bacon and Eggs’, ‘Bellies and Bums’, ‘Tom Thumb’ or ‘Crow’s toes’? These are some of the wonderfully named meadow plants. Meadows have always provided food for animals in the form of hay, but they were once also a major part of our diet, well-being and language. John meets wild-forager expert Brigit McNeil to discover how to safely identify, pick and prepare some seasonal wild meadow plants to make into a medicinal remedy. What seems a little like folklore actually has its place in science. John meets Dr. Jan Knight who’s researching how the healing properties of meadow plants can be used in modern medicine.

Ellie Harrison heads to the West Country to find out about a rare and very private harvest. In fields at a secret location they are growing one of our most unusual crops which has just one important use – pain relief. Surrounded by opium poppies Ellie meets with Jonathan Gibbs from the pharmaceutical company Macfarlan Smith. He’s responsible for growing this crop that will go on to treat people in dire need of pain relief.