As a former farm boy and longtime vegetable gardener, I wasn’t convinced that This Is a Gardening Show, the new Netflix series hosted by North Carolina native Zach Galifianakis, would have much to offer me. (After all, I am the winner of three county fair blue ribbons for my beans, okra, and tomatoes, a flex that usually takes another paragraph or so to wedge into anything I write about food.) After binging all six episodes, though, I came away as entertained as I was initially surprised that sarcastic, offbeat comedic actor Galifianakis is an acolyte for growing your own grub. Here are some other things I gleaned along the way.
1. A gardening show can be funny.
I’ve consumed enough gardening content in my day to safely state that the genre isn’t exactly a laugh riot. But perpetually rumpled Galifianakis leads with his comedic chops, whether that means delivering deadpan lines such as “Food, from what I hear, you have to have it,” or making sophomoric gestures with a garden hose. (Go ahead, try not to giggle.) The relentless gags make his skip-the-supermarket advocacy go down as sweet as the cherry tomatoes that send him into rapture on a small farm.
2. There’s a little something for fans of “Between Two Ferns.”
As each episode finds Galifianakis querying small farmers about their crops and techniques, one might easily be reminded of the low-budget, faux-talk-show viral videos in which he obtusely posed inappropriate questions to A-list celebrities. Here, he mostly turns his withering wit upon his own lumpy physique and gardening acumen. (No, Zach, carrot bunches don’t grow with rubber bands on them). Just to make the comparison unavoidable, he literally stands between forest ferns in the foraging episode.
3. He’s not afraid to dumb it down.
By the time Galifianakis describes curing his own chicken-droppings manure, it’s clear he’s no clean-fingernails newbie. That said, he’s happy to play the fool to get viewers to follow in his poopsteps, including asking an orchardist to give the easiest-to-understand demo of apple-tree grafting that I’ve ever seen. I also learned that I probably should be watering my patio tomatoes from the bottoms of their pots—though I probably won’t because I’m stuck in my ways.
4. There’s a little something for fans of “The Hangover.”
No, Galifianakis doesn’t dose his crew and go on a drug-fueled, blackout Vegas bender. He does mention that the way he prefers to eat mushrooms is at Burning Man, and by the time he tries to tempt a group of schoolkids into bobbing for apples floating in a toilet (a running gag), I half expect to see Mike Tyson enter the frame with a Bengal tiger. In the end, I think he’s just under the powerful influence of fresh backyard veggies.
5. Sincerity is at the root.
At the end of almost every episode, Galifianakis simply says, “The future is agrarian,” which is contrarian and almost revolutionary rhetoric in a factory-farm era. Silly and sophomoric as the show is at moments, it’s gratifying to witness the obvious regard that a Hollywood bigshot has for people who spend their days cultivating, nurturing, and harvesting the healthiest and tastiest of produce. Or, as Galifianakis put it, “If I could offer a remedy to the human condition, it would be a garden. Or acid.”
Steve Russell is a Garden & Gun contributing editor who also has written for Men’s Journal, Life, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. Born in Mississippi and raised in Tennessee, he resided in New Orleans and New York City before settling down in Charlottesville, Virginia, because it’s far enough south that biscuits are an expected component of a good breakfast.
