ONDER OF A WATERSIDE FARM SHOP

2:20pm Thursday 7th September 2006

Jane Fanner-Hoskin and her husband, Vyvyan, re-entered my life at 6am one warm Sunday in August, when the last thing I expected to hear on Radio 4's early morning farming programme was Jane's voice describing their farm, which butts the Oxford Canal.

It also sounded as if they had everything that those delightful TV characters Tom and Barbara Good strove for in the BBC sitcom of the 1970s, The Good Life.

But it is the canal and their narrow boat shop that sets Jane and Vyvyan apart from Tom and Barbara. Jane's convinced it's England's only floating shop. Her customers come from the other narrow boats travelling the canal. Few make the long journey along the bumpy rutted track that leads to their farm gates, where two dogs, four cats, a retired Dartmoor pony, a working horse, several Jersey cows, chickens and a cockerel live in harmony with each other.

They have 30 acres of land that hugs the canal bank, but as 28 acres are on the Cherwell Valley flood plain - and so apt to vanish under water during wet periods - only two acres are workable.

But Jane and Vyvyan have managed to fit virtually everything they need to be self sufficient into that small remaining space. There are two small, but well stocked orchards, a soft-fruit area, a massive vegetable garden, a couple of green houses (one of which houses a vine) several small paddocks where the cows can graze quite happily and an area they leave as meadow to give them hay for Jacob, the horse. Under the trees beside the canal there's a hand-painted sign for the narrow boat shop and another offering Cream Teas.

The shop is filled with vegetables, bread and pies, home-made chutneys and jams and fresh produce from their garden.

A table, complete with a vase of flowers and two old, but extremely comfortable old sofas are arranged nearby for those who would like to stay for tea.

Should they get a rush of enthusiastic boat travellers all gasping for a cuppa and a home-made scone with lashings of thick Jersey cream and Jane's strawberry jam, there are more tables near the vegetable patch.

During August and September, Jane says she can hardly keep up with demand as canal holidaymakers stop off to buy groceries.

Jane also stocks a few essentials in her shop, such as coffee, sugar and tea.

Jane says their happiness comes from having learned to live in harmony with the rhythm of the seasons.

"Work with the seasons and it all dovetails into one enormous whole", she says, pointing to Wendy, the Jersey cow, who provides both cream and fertilizer! Nothing is wasted on this farm. The mint that grows in abundance is turned into mint sauce. This is bottled and stocked in the shop. The garlic cloves and onions are picked and fallen apples are turned into chutney. The five beehives placed by the canal bank provide the honey and Jane makes jam from the raspberries and strawberries.

The tomatoes, now ripening in the main greenhouse, provide the main ingredient for a tasty tomato sauce and the rest of the vegetables are parcelled up into plastic bags and displayed outside the shop.

Freshly laid free range eggs are also on offer at the shop.

Not content with growing all their own food, the couple also harvest their own seeds. Jane says that the success they have had with their seeds over the past ten years has defied all the folk tales that suggest there comes a time when it just doesn't work.

"Look at the runner beans," she says as she pushed to one side the lush growth and a little red flowers to reveal masses of handsome beans. "They get better every year," she said with satisfaction. Another thing that gets better every year is the balance of predators they have now obtained by going organic.

"This year we have had hardly any greenfly because there have been so many ladybirds keeping them down. Because the number of birds here has increased, the amount of slugs and snails has decreased. Yes - I know that the birds help themselves to the occasional raspberry or apple, but there's enough for all of us now. So we let them have their share," said Jane.

Wendy, the Jersey cow, is allowed to keep her share of the milk for her calf too as Jane only milks her when they need more butter, cream and milk.

"Doing it this way means I have a healthy calf and just as much milk as and when I need it."

The day I arrived at the farm, Jane had finished baking a couple of cakes. She was also was busily bottling up this year's rhubarb and blackberry wine, which she says will be just the thing for their Christmas table. Home-made wine is not sold in the shop, it's something that's reserved for family parties and the festive season.

Vyvyan, who is a master wheelwright and makes handsome hand-made wooden wheelbarrows to order, was putting the finishing touches to a splendid wooden gate he had made for the main paddock. The attractive painted milk churns that decorate the area around the shop are Jane's handiwork. In fact there doesn't seem to be a thing that this remarkable pair can't make fix or turn their hands too. Walking into their farm is like walking into another world.

I left feeling that Tom and Barbara Good would have been envious of their narrow boat shop and their amazing farm, which provides the local couple with a "good life" throughout the changing seasons.

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