Deane's Nature Notes is a collection of articles that appeared in The Organic Grower between 2009-21.
He has been an organic farmer and adviser to the Organic Conversion Information Service. A proud Devonian, he and his family made a small, abandoned farm into an organic veg grower, with a box scheme that was a forerunner of the route to market that has given financial security to dozens of farms nationwide.
Each article is a couple of pages long and lulls you into Deane's lifestyle, with its observations on birds, bees and plants, using his vast and hard-won experience.
He advocates cats to keep field mice in order and preserve his stores.
Watching the flycatchers, the holly and the snowdrops gives the book a seasonal beat. It's a bit like the Guardian's Country Diary.
Deane gets irate about pheasant shooting wrecking SSSIs, the high price of sedge and ramsons on the internet.
A friend ignores his tip to write a dissertation on plant psychology. She chooses "something simpler", a treatise on lab rats. "Perhaps her being vegan had something to do with it."
He's generally a thoughtful writer though and muses on the word 'organic'. Just a word, but so much more; a way of life.
