Bob Flowerdew: home-grown produce guru After visiting the nuttery (Bob believes hazelnuts produce the best protein crop), where he also grows puff balls in late summer, we entered his soft fruit cage made from a polytunnel frame, covered with chicken wire and topped with plastic netting. It incorporated a pond, home to pest-eating frogs and toads, to water the potted lemons that come outside in the summer. His famed use of old carpet as a mulch has mostly been replaced with geo-textile. In his inspirational potting shed, where last year's pears are stored snugly under two vintage paisley eiderdowns, everywhere there are trials: new seedling varieties he's developing, experimental compost combinations, and best of all, his cosy polytunnel within a polytunnel full of cape gooseberries, custard apples, and strawberry guavas (from seed available from Chilterns). Finally, inside a further cold frame, and under another layer of bubble wrap - frost free and dry - were his pineapples, in pride of place. True to his doctrine of year-round food production, Bob forces early strawberries (he recommends variety Malwina) and new potatoes in pots for Easter. His flock of silkie cross hens, depleted recently by one - our lunch - roam in certain prescribed areas, and live happily in an old greenhouse. Sadly his bees have succumbed to varroa mite. How have things changed since the original inception of the book? His idealism has been tempered with experience and pragmatism. Perhaps it doesn't pay to be ahead of the game. Bob and his family live frugally, with dividends paid in good health. Many others have jumped on the organic bandwagon and many more have been converted. The effects of climate change are obvious; he believes water shortage to be the biggest threat. And how has Bob's life changed since his marriage and the birth of his twin son and daughter, now six years old? He maintains peevishly that "one small boy with a stick can do more damage in a garden than all the badgers, pigeons and moles in the county." But he's a softie really. His children have their own front garden, he grows sugar cane especially for them, and has made trees easier for them to climb. Endlessly inventive, he practises what he preaches and experiments with new and old varieties. (An edible campanula? Verdict: curious flavour.) I went home clutching a pot of Bob Berry Jam, from one of his seedlings that tasted of blackberries already mixed with apple. It was delicious, and typically Bob: inventive, tasty, but with a slightly sharp edge. Bob's bright ideas Bob stores his seeds in an old fridge. His 4ft-wide mounded veg beds have foot-wide paths covered with carpet to prevent evaporation. Bob's garden paths have paving set diamond-wise to save money. Tarragon is moved every two years to re-invigorate. Raspberry canes are woven into a horizontal rope to encourage short vertical fruit- bearing shoots. Old sunflower stalks (grown for the hens) are turned into stakes for peas. Instead of growing leeks from seed, he plants out bulblet side shoots that have been first chilled in the fridge, to escape the leek moth. Claytonia, the ultimate winter salad, is easy to grow, and self-seeding. He distils violet flowers in white rum - as a tonic.