The growing pains of Otter Farm

When Mark Diacono started cultivating a West Country smallholding, he decided to let his taste buds call the shots. So it was out with the potatoes... and in with the cardoons, medlars and olivesIt is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a bit of garden will plant it with potatoes, onions and carrots. Faced with a world of possibilities, a special madness takes over and we fill our precious patch with the cheapest, most widely available food we can think of. I did exactly the same the first year I grew anything. Never again. All those summer hours spent watering and weeding for a few sackfuls of maincrop veg was a good way of finding out what other interesting things I'd rather be doing. I wanted to grow some of what I ate, but this wasn't it.The following year, in 2004, on our way back from our wedding party, we came to Otter Farm for the first time. I had my own business advising local authorities and government agencies about managing the landscape, but I had the urge to keep animals and to grow some veg and plant some trees at the same time, but that was as detailed as my mind had it. I certainly wasn't thinking of a business - just growing some of what my wife and I wanted to eat. Continue reading...