Garden Pickers - The next great gardening show?

Is anyone else watching episodes of American Pickers on The History Channel? For those without cable or who haven’t tuned in, American Pickers features two guys, Mike and Frank, who travel around and try to buy old stuff from pack rats and collectors who have amassed enormous piles and buildings full of stuff.

Mike and Frank tend to pick old cars, bicycles, motorcycles, oil cans, rusty signs and the occasional old toy. Sometimes they’ll pick up a lamp or other artifact… if they think they can clean it up and sell it for a profit. I don’t blame them for buying these same types of things over and over again. Everyone buys what they like.

But after watching numerous episodes, it struck me that they have yet to pick a hoe, an old planter or two old metal chairs that look like they would be right at home in a cottage garden.

How long can a gardener watch a show if there isn’t much going on related to gardening?

Fellow gardeners, I think it is time for The History Channel to take American Pickers to a new level and create the next great garden show, Garden Pickers.

For Garden Pickers, two avid gardeners – let’s go with me and someone else for now - would travel about to visit other gardeners across the United States, and maybe Canada, Great Britain and Europe, and see what unusual plants and gardening gear they have. We could barter with them to buy old hoes, planters and garden furniture to re-sale at select garden centers across the country and – here’s the most exciting part – if those gardeners have unusual trees, flowers, shrubs, fruits, or vegetables growing in their gardens that you can’t really get any longer unless you happen to know them, we will offer to take cuttings or collect seeds to turn over to select greenhouses and nurseries to propagate and introduce some of those plants back to the public.

Along the way, we’ll also get to see undiscovered, personal gardens of the Unites States, and maybe Canada, Great Britain, and Europe, and interview real, passionate, quirky, possibly eccentric gardeners.

Oh, and just like how Mike and Frank check in with a “buddy” when they don’t know about something, we’d check in with the closest horticultural school to bring in experts to help with plant identification. Oh, wait, it’s Rick on Pawn Stars who is always calling a buddy in for a second opinion. Well, you get the idea, we’ll invite experts to be on the show to help with plant identification.

Would you watch a show like Garden Pickers? If so, treat the comments like a petition and sign up. Tell your gardening friends. If there is enough interest, who knows? Someone might find themselves on the first episode telling us about their special heirloom tomato or maybe even showing us their old hoe, the one they can’t garden without.

Go ahead, tell the world this could be the next great gardening show.