It all began with a mulberry…

The main attraction of the fields was that they were almost completely uncultivated. “They were so blank. They hadn’t been stamped with anything,” says Mark. “The sheer potential of it was astonishing. Kingfishers were flying around everywhere, and it was just a gorgeous place to be. Candida felt the same.” Fast forward a decade, and their decision to purchase Otter Farm has literally borne fruit. Here Mark has established Britain’s only “climate change farm”, on which are grown fruit and vegetables that traditionally only flourished in warmer climes. “Some degree of climate change is inevitable, and even a small alteration in temperature allows marginal things to grow from overseas. Things like apricots and almonds normally have huge carbon footprints associated with them. The idea was to grow them here with zero carbon, and inspire other people to do the same,” he says. Among the bewildering array of exotic foods produced on the farm are kiwis and grapes, dwarf apricots and peaches, Nepalese pepper and eastern mint, Japanese quinces, bamboo shoots, mirabelles and American bladdernuts. But it is the humble mulberry that occupies a special place in Mark’s heart. “The seed for Otter Farm was hidden inside the first mulberry I ate, the summer before we came here,” he recalls. “Eaten perfectly ripe from a friend’s tree in Suffolk, and followed by several mulberry vodkas made from the previous year’s fruit, it blew me away. It was the finest fruit I’d tasted, yet never in the shops. I thought, crikey, here I