Tim and Jan Deane, founders of the UK’s first organic veg box scheme, came for lunch yesterday – taking me back to my induction into what, in the 1980s, was called the ‘organic movement’. I turned my back on life as a management consultant in London and New York to join a rag-tag group of freaks from the fringe. In a decade characterised by shoulder pads, brash consumerism, and Harry Enfield’s ‘Loadsamoney’, these people believed in the redemptive possibilities of the soil. My snappy suit ended up eaten by moths in my damp cottage as I bent to the task of learning a new trade. It felt like coming home.
In the 1980s, there were no handbooks, courses, or YouTube videos on organic farming. You had to seek out those who were doing it, glean what you could while helping them to pick potatoes or plant lettuce, then have a go and learn from your mistakes. I drove my battered Citroën Dyane to visit established organic growers, everywhere from Pembrokeshire to the Fens. I was invariably offered honest advice, food, and a place to lay my head; sometimes in a caravan in an orchard, sometimes in a manor house sporting coats of arms. All were given generously, and I was encouraged on my journey of discovery, as an ally in a common cause.
Tim and Jan Deane were a few years ahead of me on that journey, and had recently acquired a small farm on the southern fringe of Dartmoor. To my eyes, the soil looked difficult and poorly drained – but Tim, with limited machinery, but plenty of patience and experience, coaxed some wonderful crops from it. After visiting Japan, Jan introduced the veg box to the UK. Their business grew rapidly, until, with extraordinary generosity, they persuaded me to start my own veg box scheme. They even donated the first 30 customers. And the rest is history.
Tim has now hung up his hoe. His occasional missives on nature and farming, which first appeared in the Organic Grower magazine, have been published in a short but beautiful book called Nature Notes. As I sat reading Tim’s gentle depiction of the industry I love and the nature it is embedded in, I reflected that I may have sold more veg boxes in the end, but we arrived at a similar place. You can buy Nature Notes on Amazon, or (much better) from the Organic Growers Alliance. Visit organicgrowersalliance.co.uk/nature-notes.
Our News from the Farm posts come from Riverford. They are the digital versions of the printed letters which go out to customers, every week via Riverford’s veg boxes. Guy Singh-Watson’s weekly newsletters connect people to the farm with refreshingly honest accounts of the trials and tribulations of producing organic food, and the occasional rant about farming, ethical and business issues he feels strongly about.
I felt nostalgic reading this. I was one of your first ever box customers way back last century (collecting it in my own battered Citroën 2CV van!).
Guy, I really miss your rants and books; and now we live in Brittany (growing a great deal of our own vegan food) I also miss the Field Kitchen. Nothing like it.
Heading off to find Tim’s book online, however.