I left my job in London to grow food. This deep connection with nature gives my life meaning

‘I tried to take on any job – each day a different one – that meant I could spend my days outside, my hands in the soil.’ Claire Ratinon at Kensons Farm near Salisbury in 2018. Photograph: Joel Redman/The Guardian

In July 2016, I was sitting on the rooftop of a building in central London, listening to the gentle rumble of a nearby beehive, when I realised that my life had changed entirely. I didn’t intend to quit – quitting crept up on me. After eight years of working in the media, I was on a path to becoming an organic food grower, with a temporary side hustle of city beekeeping.

Not long before that point, I was just like the people in the office building below me. My work days were spent behind a desk or lugging around camera equipment, but now I am devoted to a life of nurturing the soil and growing the plants that end up on our plates.