At what is a very difficult time for magazines and newspapers, one magazine is significantly bucking the trend of falling sales, subscribers and advertising revenue.   Permaculture Magazine is seeing it sales rise and rise as more and more people seek out what they can do themselves to be more self reliant and to save themselves money.

Things only look set to grow further for the ground breaking and Queen’s Award winning publication as permaculture is set to make further inroads into the consciousness of the general public when it is featured as part of the new BBC2 prime-time TV series The Edible Garden.

The six part series is scheduled to be broadcast on Tuesday 16th March 2010 at 8pmwith the aim to encourage people to grow more of their own food.

The programmes are hosted by Gardeners’ World’s Alys Fowler (photo attached as is the front cover image of the current issue of Permaculture Magazine, PM63) who aims to show that you can prepare at least one meal a day using only home-grown produce from a small suburban garden..  But, rather than converting her garden into an allotment with regimented rows of plants, Alys grows her fruit and veg amongst her shrubs and flowers so that the garden remains beautiful as well as productive.

Along the way she meets other people inspired to grow their own including Tim and Maddy Harland of Permaculture Magazine (www.permaculture.co.uk). Footage of their back garden from eighteen years ago appears alongside how it looks now. It is an example of what permaculture can achieve.

“We hope we will inspire others to explore different ways of growing and eating food,” says Tim. “And we want to communicate the real pleasure the family get from the garden.”

As we go to press the details of the programme’s broadcast are yet to be confirmed. But, do keep an eye on our website over the coming days as we will announce the details as soon as we have them. As with all BBC programmes if you miss an episode you can view it via the BBC’s iPlayer.

Permaculture Magazine is appearing in ever more UK outlets, with the current issue appearing in 190 WHSmith stores and for the first time on till queue displays.  The print run has risen from 13,000 a few years ago to 21,000 copies currently.

At the end of 2009, Channel 4 broadcast The Greatest TV Shows Of The Noughties, which counted down the twenty most influential programmes of the decade. At number 14 was Grand Designs and the presenter Kevin McCloud reiterated that his favourite design, build and episode was Ben Law’s woodland house (PM’s sister publications, Permanent Publications, publish Ben’s and other leading titles). To have such a prominent permaculturist so highly respected and visible continues to prove inspirational to a growing number of people.

Finally, one of the BBC’s most popular and recognisable figures, Stephen Fry, has been speaking about the importance of permaculture. View this great short on YouTube (which has many other permaculture clips) and pass it around: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh8RpgtW4s0

All in all permaculture is becoming ever more a household word and a concept that is being adopted by ever more people around the UK and indeed the world.  With an increasing amount of high profile people talking about permaculture and subscribing to the magazine it seems this is a publishing success story set to grow and grow.