COSMIC CONNECTIONS AND GOOD INTENTIONS

Biodynamic growing, with its affiliation with the cosmic and its potion-like brews, can seem like a lot of hocus pocus. But at a time when some farming and gardening practices have done more harm than good, and as the seasons grow more unpredictable, its close connection to our planet’s rhythms could start looking less like occultism and more like common sense.

Jane Scotter is a modern pioneer. Her farm, Fern Verrow – 16 acres at the foothills of the Black Mountains in Herefordshire – is a flourishing biodynamic success story. When she arrived there from London in 1996, she had no farming experience, but knew she wanted to do things differently. In Jane’s previous life as a partner at Neal’s Yard Dairy, she visited various farms and was particularly taken with the cheese at Botton