“If we can get people interested in plants and horticulture and growing and gardening, then the wonderful overlay is that it then hooks them into the importance of nutrition and health.”
Last December marked six years since Costa Georgiadis was announced as the host of Gardening Australia; replacing Peter Cundall, the long-time and much-loved host of the ABC program. They were big gum boots to fill but Costa, with his signature ‘wild man’ beard and infectious passion for all things green, has the made the role his own.
That love of nature and passion for gardening was one instilled in Costa by his grandfather. “He was a market gardener, a man of the earth. He was constantly working in the garden. When I came onto the scene he was retired but then living in Sydney with a backyard that to me, at that point, was a fairy land; a wonderland of just everything growing,” Costa recalls.
His grandfather was also an environmentalist somewhat ahead of his time. “He was a sustainability leader back then: he was reusing, recycling, up-cycling, re-purposing. They didn’t throw things away; there was no waste, there were no big bins. So he was my inspiration, particularly the more I do what I do, and the more I see how the solutions to our challenge is a lot simpler than we need to think them to be.”
It is perhaps because of that grandfather-grandson dynamic that Costa himself is very much about engaging and educating children; citing “the power of children ‘getting it’, and the continual building and extension of school gardens and community gardens throughout the country” as some of the high points of his work. “Because when kids ‘get it’, they’ve got it. They don’t lose it,” he insists.
Thankfully, Costa believes adults are starting to ‘get it’ too. “I think people are making a distinct connection now between their health and nutrition and who’s growing their food and how they’re growing their food. And that’s exciting,” he says. “If we can get people interested in plants and horticulture and growing and gardening, then
the wonderful overlay is that it that then hooks them into the importance of nutrition and health, and activity and ecosystems; how if you want to have a healthy ecosystem you need to have gardens, you need plants, you need birds, you need the insects, you need the flowers to feed the insects. The absolute web of life needs to be wrapped around us wherever we’re living or working.”
Costa believes the evolving food scene in Australia is playing its part too. “That’s a good point about the whole foodie scene: the foodie scene is making people more aware of the ingredients, and step-by-step the changes are happening,” he observes. “There are elements of that I have challenges with, in terms of people being dogmatic about ‘I need these ingredients for this recipe’ without understanding the seasonality, but it’s bringing that in and making people more aware of seasonality.”
“The major outlets for food in the cities provide everything all the year round. People don’t know there is a mango season. It hides the reality of the seasons. If we eat seasonally that’s better for us because that’s what our bodies need now,” Costa says, recommending that if a fruit or vegetable is a Spring food “eat it in Spring, celebrate it in Spring. Load up!”
Naturally, Costa practices what he preaches; a supporter of grower’s markets (“that’s my little way of saying ‘I’m supporting you, I’m backing you, I’ll buy what you’ve got’”), he also loves to cook. “I cook ever day.” One of his favourite foods is horta, or “wild weeds”, a nod to his Greek heritage.
“I love horta and I love the fact horta vary. And everywhere you go [in Greece], whether you’re in Crete, or on Paros or Naxos, or in Athens, horta vary from the mountains to the sea. And they’re a side dish with every meal, and that’s your edible greens.”
“I love swimming and surfing. I love travel and l love just being in the moment, and thinking about what’s going on around me. I love bushwalking and just getting overawed, and looking at the details of nature,” he says, immediately commenting on the state of some nearby trees and their relation to the urban environment. That’s not surprising given that Costa, before he became a television host, was, and remains, a landscape architect.
And whether on TV, or in life, he’s drawn to similarly passionate people. “People who are just so into one plant, that level of intent and introspection is inspiring because they’ve dedicated 40 or 50 years to orchids or native plants, or bush tucker, or vegetables or seed saving,” Costa says. “I see amazing inspiration in every person.”
Images courtesy of Gardening Australia/ABC
