Series History

Almanac Gardener is UNC-TV’s half-hour, home horticultural series. Each season, Almanac Gardener horticultural experts from the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service answer viewer gardening questions and feature helpful, how-to horticultural segments produced in locales throughout the Tar Heel State.

The partnership between the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service and UNC-TV began over 50 years ago. Since the inception of this statewide public telveision network in North Carolina, Extension specialists and agents have worked with UNC-TV to produce such programs as:

• Aspect, a daily agricultural information show;
• Now, a Tar Heel travelogue;
• Backyard Gardener, a live, local call-in horticultural show;
• Almanac, a how-to program covering Extension topics ranging from food preparation to cutting wood for the fireplace; and
• Almanac Gardener, a weekly horticultural show that answers home gardeners questions and informs them with field features on the latest developments in landscaping and gardening.

Airing annually from April to August, Almanac Gardener is one of the statewide public television network's longest-running original programs, celebrating its 25th anniversary season in 2008. Moreover, Almanac Gardener and other Cooperative Extension Service series have consistently been some of the most-watched shows in UNC-TV's more than five-decade history.

This unprecedented success is due to a half-century of collaboration and cooperation between Cooperative Extension and UNC-TV. Over the years, UNC-TV has provided the critical production support for these programs, while Cooperative Extension specialists and agents have supplied the university research-based information that the people of North Carolina have come to trust.

The relationship between UNC-TV and Cooperative Extension Service at North Carolina State University has been long and fruitful onel. In 2007, this cooperation was recognized when UNC-TV was awarded the Epsilon Sigma Phi "Friend of Extension" Award.