We count ourselves very lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world and we try to make as much of a contribution as possible to making sure it stays that way. But Wow! Where to start?! There's such a lot on everybody's agenda at the moment that if you're not knitting your own yoghurt and living in a yurt you're really not green enough. Here's what we do - and have been doing for ages - because we believe it's right and not jumping on a bandwagon. Now it seems like a lot of you are interested in green issues too so it seems like a good time to tell you what we do. On a grand scale it may not seem a lot but everything is part of our lifestyle, easily achievable and transferable.

Work from Home:This is easily the best thing we do to reduce our carbon footprint. We run the bed and breakfast, cooking school, production kitchen, office, and our various other small ventures all from one premises. So no travel to work, we don't have two premises each empty half of the time and we save on rent. We know not everyone can do this but it's a growing trend which we wholeheartedly embrace.

Shop Local : We came down here in 2002 to run the catering at the Royal Dart Yacht Club. One of the reasons it appealed was the superb quality and availability of local food - not just meat and fish but great bread, veggies, smoked products, ice-creams, cheeses and preserves. We have carried on this passion for local food into the Manna from Devon B&B, outside catering and cookery school. It may take a bit more planning than just going to the cash'n'carry but the difference in quality is vast as is the pleasure we get from using it and telling others about it. Plus; and this is the big one; if we don't support our local producers and retailers we condemn ourselves to having no choice but to go to super markets. Then we'll all be eating the same tasteless, nutritionally poor crap as everyone else from Bodmin to Benbecula. We've now extended our suppliers for everything from office stationery to wine to builders to servicing the cars - this invariably means we get better service and knowledge from these guys.

Recycling: We recycle everything we possibly can - plastics, paper, cardboard, bottles & jars, clothes, books. Vegetal food waste gets composted or eaten by the chickens and the dogs love the any meaty scraps so our dustbin waste is very small. Garden waste goes to the compost bin or leaf mould bin and as we have a lot of Tree Preservation Orders, believe me, we get a lot of leaves. We reuse cardboard boxes and packaging for delivering our brownies and puds.

Chickens: Our first two batches of chickens came from the Battery Hen Welfare Trust who rescue them (with the farmer's permission - it's not like "Chicken Run") and then rehome them to live out their lives well cared for by people like us. Since I started cooking, battery chickens have always seemed to me to be just wrong and I've always sought out free-range eggs and chickens to cook with. From a cook's point of view they just have a better flavour and give a superior product. From a humanitarian point of view, it is scandalous that living creatures are put in dreadful conditions for our benefit. Our rescue chicks are only a year old when we get them and produce a good 18 month's worth of eggs before the quantity starts declining. This is great for B&B guests as they can have that morning's eggs with their breakfasts.It's also been great for the garden as we seem to be slug and snail free as the girls love feasting on them.

Actually there is something they like better and that is scratching around in a newly dug piece of ground - slightly annoying when you're trying to plant bulbs but apart from that, it's very sociable gardening with them joining in. The second thing they like more than slugs and snails is toes in flip-flops so you have to move quickly if you're wearing them. Our next batch (due early April 2008) are coming from Edward Jones up the hill. His birds have already had a fine life with lots of space and a view to die for (like they care) but they still only get around nine months befor ethey're off on their holidays. So we'll be taking them and giving them a couple more years at least.

Grow Your Own: We are lucky to have a big garden but until now have been stretched for time in trying to get it sorted out. We are currently creating some time to dig the garden, adding some structure and - very exciting - building a veggie plot. We'll use these veggies and herbs in the B&B and cookery school and those of you having evening meals with us will have the benefit of literally just-picked ingredients for dinner. That's the plan - beans, lettuces, herbs, squash, potatoes, tomatoes, peas, courgettes, currants, raspberries and strawberries as well as some cutting flowers for the house. Needless to say the veggie patch is going to have to be dog and chicken-proof and the crows in the trees love to throw down sticks when they're nest building so it could end up looking a bit like Fort Knox. Work in progress so we'll let you know how it's getting on.In the meantime, our veggies come mainly from Riverford Home Delivery - good quality, local, fresh and delivered. We feed our birds and have a huge variety coming to the feeders - robins, blue tits, great tits, chaffinches, greenfinches. In the garden there are also wrens, nuthatches, treecreepers, blackbirds, sparrows and of course the crows. Everything is put on hold when the goldcrests are spotted or when the longtailed tits come to eat.

The House: There is no natural gas in the village so we are on LPG for all our heating and cooking. As far as alternative sources go, we're pretty sheltered in our little valley unless it's a direct westerly wind blowing so a wind turbine isn't going to cut the mustard. We are looking into solar panels on the roof to provide hot water as we get the sun all day in the summer. Again - more work in progress. We're also looking into getting our electricity from renewable sources. Lightbulbs are being replaced by green versions - they may take a little longer to get bright but they use a lot less electricity. We collect rain water for the garden and are installing more water butts. We only use ecological cleaning products - initially because we need to keep our septic tank happy but also they are easy to use, don't smell bleachy and don't irritate my hands. We only use the tumbledryer for keeping towels fluffy - everything else is hung out to dry. All the paper we use in the house - loo paper, kitchen paper, office paper - is made from recycled paper.