From Ecologist to Farmer

Ceri Richards spent years learning about ecology, first as a student of Environmental Biology, then as an ecological consultant. Though the work suited her training, she grew disillusioned and stepped back when she had children.

But her love for plants never left her.

During COVID, Ceri worked at a market garden, growing salads and flowers. It changed everything. “I realized that working on the land was what I wanted to do with my life,” she says.

Her husband Ben, a researcher, was also ready for a change, and together they made a bold move to build a herbal tea farm in England. “To buy the land and start Gathered & Grown, we had to sell our house and then apply for planning permission to live there.” It was a financial risk, but one they were willing to make to pursue their dreams.

Ceri and Ben knew they wanted to create a farm with diverse crops, a low carbon footprint, and provide a local alternative for herbal teas instead of having them shipped in from around the world. As Ceri explains, “As an ecologist, farming in a way that had a positive impact on the environment was the only possible approach to take.”

The herbal tea farm has now come to life on 2 hectares near Ottery St Mary in Devon, England. Ceri and Ben applied for temporary planning permission to live on site and moved into two yurts in 2022 with their two children. “It’s not easy to start a new farm in the UK,” Ceri says. “When we decided that this is what we wanted to do, we considered all of our options, and buying a farm or a house with land was out of our reach financially.” Still they found a way to make it work.

From Seed to Cup

The 2 hectares they bought was a former horse pasture: with low biodiversity, sandy soil, and very little organic matter. Three sides were fenced and the other had a mature native hedgerow. It was not perfect, but Ceri could envision what it could become. “We could see that there was the potential to increase biodiversity by growing a variety of crops and creating wildlife habitats,” she says.

No-dig beds were built with green-waste compost and woodchip pathways. No fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides, and no livestock were used. “This helped to reduce weed pressure, maintain moisture in the soil, and improve soil structure,” she says.

Crop selection for their teas is climate-conscious, with many drought-tolerant Mediterranean herbs chosen including : chamomile lavender, lemon balm, fennel, apothecary rose, calendula and cornflower, as well as Moroccan mint, with frost-sensitive plants such as lemongrass and lemon verbena grown in a polytunnel.

Ceri and Ben harvest the herbs at peak condition, dry them gently on custom-made racks, then garble them by hand, rubbing them over wire mesh to separate leaf from stem, before blending and packing into reusable tins so that all of the processing is done entirely on site.

“Since we started this, we have noticed a larger organic layer in the soil, with increased numbers of worms and invertebrates,” says Ceri. “It also locks carbon into the soil and helps our business to be carbon negative.”

The farm that was horse pasture in 2022 is now alive with ladybirds, hoverflies, and lacewings. Large flocks of linnets and goldfinches can be seen on the farm. . In their first year, Gathered & Grown received a gold sustainability award and gold and silver taste awards from Food Drink Devon, before the farm had completed its first full growing season.

Small Farm, Big Vision

Tea is more than a beverage in Britain, it is a ritual, a comfort, a cultural constant. Herbal tea is becoming more and more popular as an alternative to black tea. That Gathered & Grown grows tea in England makes you reconsider what British tea can be. It adds another layer to the ritual and is a story worth knowing: two hectares, tended by two people who understand both ecology and flavor, processed entirely by hand, packaged with minimum waste. It is the kind of farm that

Ceri believes that small farms like hers are not just a viable model, they are the future. “To make small farms work, they need to be innovative and creative,” she says. And they are doing just that by expanding their crop range and developing new products over the next five years, building a business that can sustain not just a farm, but a home.

In the hamlet where Gathered & Grown sits, regenerative market gardens, a flower farm, an orchard, and a blueberry farm are already neighbors. “Our vision is to build a community and create a nature-rich landscape, local food security and healthy, functioning ecosystems,” Ceri shares.

This is also why Top 50 Farmers matter to them. “There are very few regenerative herb farms in the U.K. so it would be great to see how others in a similar situation are doing things,” she says.

Written by Top 50 Farmers and Juliana Bonatto