We are starting to see green shoots push through the earth. Spring is a truly magical time, when our hearts become filled with hope after the long, bleak winter.

And it is the time when our thoughts turn towards gardening. For many years when living in Devon, I kept a small vegetable garden, and this little plot afforded me many triumphs and many disappointments. Growing vegetables and herbs is an art like any other, and repays patient study and practice. But it is always happy-making: to spend an hour in the garden every day is fantastic therapy. Whatever else the world is flinging at you, here is a little patch of paradise and peace which is yours to cultivate.

So that’s why we’re doing an offer on Alys Fowler’s online gardening course. Above is a short clip form part one.

Of all the young gardeners working today, we reckon Alys Fowler is the most exciting, and that’s why we asked her to write and host our video-based online gardening course. Across eight films, she takes you through the gardening year, from preparing the soil right through to pickling and preserving your harvest.

What better way to spend the evenings, than to watch Alys’s films and educate yourself in the rudiments of growing your own organic produce, whether in town or country?

As course student Michael Payne says: “Alys explains more about soil conditioning, sowing, planting and weeding than all the TV programmes put together.”

We’re offering Alys’s online course at half price till Sunday evening. Was £100, now £50. Click here to watch the trailer.

To boot we’ll send the first fifty UK customers a free packet of radish seeds and an Idler bookmark in the mail.