Søren Ryge Petersen is a Danish television presenter, journalist, and writer.
Born in Gram, South Denmark, on 31 July 1945, Petersen grew up some 50 km further south in Achtrup, Schleswig-Holstein.
The holder of an M.A. in Danish language from Aarhus University, he is a self-taught horticulturalist and was editor from 1978 to 1990 of the magazine Haven ("The Garden") published by The Danish Garden Society. He has also written for the leading daily newspaper Politiken.
Petersen began working for the Danish national broadcasting corporation DR in 1977 and in 1988 he got his own show on DR television: DR Derude ("Out There"), a gardening programme in which a camera crew followed him around his own garden at Djursland as he demonstrated how he looked after it and talked about the flowers and crop plants it contained. In 1992, the programme went live under the name of DR Derude Direkte, later renamed Søren Ryge. Edition number 100 was broadcast on 6 August 2008 and presented a series of clips from the earlier shows.
As well as DR Derude, Søren Ryge Petersen has made a series of other programmes for DR, presenting the nature of the world and its people, with particular emphasis on the portrayal of people living simple lives.
Bibliography
Dansk eller tysk, 1975 () Landet og året, 1995 () Historier fra Danmark, 1998 () Spørg Søren, 2001 () Fortællinger fra et tv-liv, 2001 () I haven, 2002 ()