“It is the grower who best preserves the vital link of mankind with earth and its processes” wrote Tim Deane in the first edition of the Organic Grower magazine that he contributed his Nature Notes to in 2009. Every quarter from then until 2021, from his farm on the edge of Dartmoor, he shared his observations of his life working the land organically.
Bringing the collection of Nature Notes together into this book provides a delightful, inspiring, and thought-provoking window into Tim’s life and the natural cycles of the year he moves through. The notes variously step back to ponder wider inhabitants of England’s viewpoint of the land, mainly from a travelling vehicle, or the case for re-introducing lost species to the UK such as the beaver then homing into joyful and beautiful descriptions of the smallest of flowers, insects, or even soil particles.
Tim’s curiosity and associated patience to observe and active finding out of facts means that in each Note there is something to learn from and vivid descriptions to conjure up the thing he is focusing on. Being outside on the land day and night, he has witnessed or stumbled across the extraordinary, which many of us will never be lucky enough to see, will rush, by or not have the awareness of what we are seeing to observe.
One Note describes how a simple hand held magnifying lens allows a totally different perspective on almost anything nature has created and how we too could enjoy ‘the glinting of the many tiny mirror-like crystals’ in a stone or that the speck crawling across our table is a beautiful elegant spider.
Whilst not overtly political the Notes reflect the reality of life on the land, the climatic challenges of farming, the impact of invasive plants or pests more generally and the seemingly problematic decisions by regulatory authorities that have ripple effects on those stewarding our land.
The Notes together provide a compelling case for organic food production and illustrate the craft required by farmer doing so. Tim’s deep pride for farming organically runs through the whole book. He is unapologetic that organic farming “is an exposition of life and the nature of creation” that starts with an understanding of the soil. Through sharing his observations of changes and successes on his land he really does make the case for “going along with eternal processes, building on them where possible and avoiding their disruption at all times”.
There is no doubt that Tim is a skilled organic grower, a craft or combined knowledge that has been built up through his observation and immersion in successive circannual cycles. As he retires along with many of his peers, it is far from clear that the skills have been passed on so that when ‘conventional’ farming hits the buffers we will skill know how to farm with nature. This book being available to future organic growers, is in itself a hopeful act.
Nature Notes by Tim Deane (The Choir Press). Reviewed by Alice Lewthwaite.
