Interview with Jane Scotter

For renowned biodynamic grower Jane Scotter, the connection between soil and table is a living relationship built on care, patience, and trust in the land. Through her work at Fern Verrow and Heckfield Home Farm, in partnership with Spring Restaurant, Jane brings biodynamic principles to life, revealing how the care we give to the soil shapes every flavour that reaches the plate. 

In our latest interview for Save Soil News, Jane dives into her journey from London’s kitchens to the fields of Fern Verrow - and explores how diners, chefs, and farmers alike can restore balance to our food systems and play a part in rebuilding our connection to the earth.

1. Hi Jane, so lovely to connect with you today. So firstly, I wanted to begin with asking you what exactly biodynamic farming is - just in case our readers have never heard of it?

Biodynamic farming is based on organic principles - so no pesticides or artificial fertilisers - but it goes a step or two further by taking into account the wider cosmos and the influence it has on us. It's a holistic approach to farming where we consider the influences and forces from the unseen. When you first learn about it, it can sound complicated, even a bit kooky, but I'm a very practical person and to me, it just makes sense. A cornerstone of biodynamic farming is using special preparations made from specific plants and minerals that we apply to feed and sustain the soil. We also work according to the biodynamic calendar, which is based on the phases of the moon and other astronomical events.

I've been growing this way for nearly 30 years and all I can say is that it creates naturally stronger, disease-resilient, and more nutritious produce. I don't fully know how, I just know that it does. I absolutely wouldn't farm or grow any other way.

2. What drew you away from the world of London's food scene to farming in Herefordshire?

It was really the want to be in the countryside. I'd spent a long time in London - I was a partner at Neal's Yard Dairy - and had that romantic idea that everyone has of growing food in the countryside. But I didn't feel I was leaving the food scene particularly, rather shifting it, taking what I'd learned about quality and taste and applying it to the land itself.

And when did your curiosity about how food is grown evolve into a commitment to biodynamic agriculture?

The biodynamic approach was very appealing right from the start. I've always been involved in doing things at a high quality level - that's what drove me at Neal's Yard - and biodynamics was a natural flow on from that. There's an intellectual rigour to it, but also this profound feeling of connection, of being part of something much bigger than yourself.

Working closely with dairy farms, I'd learned about the quality of the crops and the feed, the pasture - how all of that can change the taste and quality of the milk. The terroir, as it were. So when I came to Fern Verrow, it was a natural extension of that thinking. We were looking for a certification body, and the biodynamic regime was just a step or two further than organic. After our first season experimenting, we approached various organisations and it was the Biodynamic Association that helped us most. Within three years the farm was Demeter-certified, and I've never looked back.

3. Do you feel that growing biodynamic produce enhances people's experience, appreciation, and understanding of the food they're eating?

Absolutely. Because the quality is superior and it's evident in the flavour so it's hard not to enhance people's appreciation. It's self-evident, really. When chefs like Skye Gyngell taste the produce, they immediately understand what's different about it. There's a vitality, a vigour to it.

The vegetables and fruit we grow in good soil, at the right time of year, open to the elements, they have a greatly enhanced character and flavour. Once you've tasted a lettuce grown this way, you understand that a lettuce is not a lettuce is not a lettuce. The care we put into the land, the preparations we apply, the timing of when we plant and harvest - all of it shows up on the plate. That's the beauty of it, the proof really is in the pudding.

4. You've often spoken about soil as the foundation of everything you grow. How do you perceive the connection between soil and the flavour, texture, and vitality of your crops? And does this awareness guide your growing practices day to day?

It's everything. Soil needs to be nurtured, but it also needs to be allowed to do its thing. It's simultaneously resilient and resourceful yet fragile and easily upset. It needs love and care, but you also need to know when to leave it alone, when to step back and let it be.

In terms of flavour and quality, that's more about terroir - the type of soil, whether it's acid, clay, stoney, the general conditions of the land, the elevation, the rainfall. What you grow in healthy soil at Fern Verrow, 700 feet above sea level with our high rainfall and dark green landscape, versus down under the big sky at Heckfield where we have a longer season and more sunshine - you will absolutely taste the difference. The same variety, grown with the same care, but the land itself speaks through the flavour.

This awareness guides everything we do. Every decision - when to cultivate, when to leave the soil to rest, which preparations to apply and when - it's all about maintaining that living relationship with the earth beneath our feet. That's what biodynamics teaches you.

5. From your experience supplying restaurants and markets, do you think most people truly understand where their food comes from and the work that goes into nurturing the land it grows on?

Yes and no. Perhaps the people who are more aware of organic and biodynamic food, who are more exposed to it, tend to understand. I think it's growing in a positive direction, which is heartening. The young generation particularly are very health and environmentally aware, and the proof of pesticides affecting your health is evident now - people are much more aware of that.

But there's still a disconnect. Food costs way more than people pay for it. We can be quite ignorant about the process that takes our food from pasture to plate and how many hands were responsible for that delivery. When you see those small metre-high apple trees you planted now 30 feet tall and producing close to a tonne of apples each, you understand the time and commitment involved.

That's why I think it's so important for people to buy directly from farmers, to see where their food comes from, to understand the seasons and why things cost what they do.

6. How do you see chefs, kitchens, and dining tables as spaces that can help people reconnect with the soil and raise awareness about soil related issues?

It really comes down to chefs getting a better understanding of true seasonality and taking the brave step to actually work with the seasons - and the creativity that requires - and not being prepared to compromise too often. That's how it all comes together. Because whatever vegetables are grown in the right conditions, at the right time of year, the flavour speaks for itself.

My collaboration with Skye Gyngell at Spring is the perfect example of this. What we pick one day is served on a plate the next day. That farm-to-table connection is immediate and honest. Skye has the courage to build her menus entirely around what's in season, what the land is giving us at that moment.

When diners taste that difference, when they understand they're eating something that was in the ground yesterday, something that reflects the season and the soil it grew in - that's when the reconnection happens. The dining table becomes a bridge between the soil and the eater.

7. Have you ever curated a growing plan, menu collaboration, or event that explored themes of soil health, biodiversity, or the challenges of ecosystem degradation?

Every single day! It's all we do, really. The entire farm is organised around these principles. From the moment we put in those first preparations in autumn - the horn manure that feeds the soil - to the way we plan our crop rotations, choose our companion plantings, tend our compost heaps - everything is about building soil health and biodiversity.

The entire collaboration between Fern Verrow and Spring or Heckfield Home Farm and the restaurants at Heckfield Place is essentially an ongoing exploration of these themes. Every menu Skye creates is a reflection of what the soil is capable of producing at that particular moment in the year. Every plate tells a story about the health of the land.

And increasingly, through the courses I teach at Create Academy and my work at Heckfield Place, I'm able to share this philosophy with others - showing them how you can apply biodynamic principles to any size plot, even a balcony. It's about changing how people think about their relationship with the soil, wherever they are.

8. If you were to create an educational experience for visitors or aspiring growers with a focus on soil what would that involve?

We've actually developed a comprehensive two-year biodynamic training programme that we're now piloting with our growers at Heckfield Home Farm. It's a proper certification course covering everything from soil life and the biodynamic preparations to enterprise planning and hands-on growing skills across vegetables, fruit, flowers, and herbs.

The programme takes trainees through the complete journey - from understanding how to make and apply preparations like BD500, to learning about the farm as a living organism, to developing the practical expertise needed to run a successful biodynamic market garden. They work through 24 units, each with proper assessment, covering both the philosophical foundations and the day-to-day realities of biodynamic growing.

What's particularly exciting is that it's entirely hands-on. Trainees are learning by doing - making compost, applying preparations, observing seasonal rhythms, and developing their skills across the full growing year. They keep journals, complete projects, and by the end have a thorough grounding in what it actually takes to grow biodynamically at a professional level.

It's about training the next generation of growers who truly understand this approach - not just the techniques, but the whole way of thinking about the land and our relationship with it.

9. What message of hope would you want people to take away after visiting your space at Fern Verrow or eating produce grown under your care — something that might inspire them to think differently about the world beneath their feet

To buy directly from farmers - to be prepared to pay a little bit more for the care and quality. When you pay that bit extra, you'll be rewarded with the flavour and the health benefits, and the land and the community will reap the benefits too.

But more than that, I'd want people to understand that things are changing. People are reconnecting with the land and recognising how incredibly important it is to take care of it. Yes, correcting what's happened to our farming systems is an enormous task, but it's not insurmountable. Every single person who chooses to grow something - even on a balcony - every person who buys from a local grower, every chef who commits to true seasonality - they're part of the solution.