Patti’s Quest
To redefine ‘quality of life’, to encourage biodiversity and to nurture vitality.
At Bertie’s Cottage we aim towards self-sufficiency, producing and eating sustainable food made from ingredients that change with each season and its unique weather patterns. The products of our terroir, the immediate locality, our staples taste subtly different each year – bacon from a Large Black pig fattened in a bumper year for cider apples differs from a rasher of Tamworth that gorged on plentiful acorns. If the sun shines when the clover is in flower, and there’s plenty of moisture in the ground, the honey will be like nectar, runny and mild. This year’s ‘summer’, a few days in April, coincided with bright yellow fields of oil seed rape – so the jars’ contents solidify almost immediately, and the flavour, in my opinion, is distinctly less fine.
In addition to organic techniques, I’m now working with ultra-holistic biodynamics. The buzz comes not so much from what quantity of food I can produce from just under three acres, as from the quality of the produce and the variety of life forms that coexist on our plot.
Observing the complex web of connections is a wonder and delight every single day. Along with fruit, veg and livestock for eggs and meat, bats and orchids, dragonflies and dormice thrive best in the presence of one another. And my work, tending to their requirements, is ever-changing and therefore exciting – variety truly is the spice of life.
