In May 2004 the novelist Barbara Kingsolver moved her family to the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia and embarked on a year of eating only food that they could grow themselves or could source locally. Her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, recorded their progress from the highs of autumn fruitfulness to the lows of failed crops and winter privations.

Tonight Trish Marsh will complete her own year of small miracles: consuming only food grown and produced in her home county, Herefordshire. Like Kingsolver she made some concessions: nuts, coffee, tea and sugar were bought under the Fair Trade label, as were pasta and rice: “Because you have to have something in the store cupboard.” I find Marsh one morning in late January, sitting in the tiny conservatory on the side of her house totting up figures: 12.5 per cent of gross income spent on food (“probably a bit more than when we shopped at the supermarket”) and a third of that on Fair Trade imports: “These things do tend to be pricey,” she admits. “Like the olive oil from Palestine at £5.50 for half a litre; but the Palestinians are having such a rubbish time you can't mind.”

Marsh works on sustainability for Herefordshire Council and helped to set up farmers' markets and fair trade certification for the county yet, as a full-time worker, she continued to shop in supermarkets. “There was a definite disconnect,” she says, “so I thought I should try doing what I preached - buying food produced locally.”

She called it the Herefoodshire Challenge: what did her family think of the new house rules? “The children had both just left home,” she says, “which made it easier. My daughter came back in the summer when there was plenty of produce: she insisted on having salmon and tomato ketchup but otherwise she didn't complain.” Marsh's husband, Andrew, a musician, says: “I missed Italian wine, decent olives and olive oil, but I've enjoyed not going to the supermarket - I'm weaned off that for life. And I did like going out into the garden to pick food and then eating it straight away.”

As well as growing their own, they bought from farmers' markets, farm shops and high street independents, direct from growers and online from Traidcraft. “People think that if you have a full-time job that you just won't have time to be running around buying here and there; but it was surprisingly simple,” Marsh says.

On the table in front of us is a bowl of vegetables bought from a nearby farm shop: purple sprouting broccoli, stored autumn squash, two kinds of cabbage, carrots and beetroot. She buys meat - extensively raised on grass - from local butchers. “Again, people fear that they'll end up spending a fortune, but butchers have all the cheaper cuts and know how to cook them.” Marsh has recorded the events of her year in a web diary (http://herefoodshire.blogspot.com) and is reassuringly non-preachy. She did it, she says, to publicise all the fabulous local produce and get people thinking a bit more about where food comes from.

“I did it to make a point but I certainly don't say food should be bought only locally; trading between countries is a healthy part of our food culture. But if each person diverted just £5 of their weekly spend to within the county it would pump around £2 million into the local economy. And that in turn would provide jobs and strengthen community - and we could all do with that at the moment.”

What did she miss? “Fish - terribly. The fishmonger offered me eel but they are so scarce these days I felt a bit reluctant. Pulses were a pain: we did manage to grow climbing French beans - they looked rather pretty scrambling up the house with their purple stripy pods - and we've dried them and enjoyed them in soups and stews.”

And her mother was right, she says: “It would have been horribly difficult to live without flour. Lots of grain and oats are grown in the county but none is milled here. Someone kindly ground sacks of wheat for me and I've made bread all year from the flour, but we did get a bit bored with it.” What will she rush to buy now that her year is up? “Oats for breakfast! But I don't think we'll go mad.” She is throwing a party tonight, to mark the end of the year: “I thought Andrew might want to celebrate with a table full of imported goodies. But no, he is happy to stay local, which is very sweet I think.”

Taste of the county

Apples

Herefordshire has been the leading county for cider-apple orcharding since the 1600s, when a particularly suitable cider apple, the Redstreak, was discovered in the area

Pears

The county has been described as a “forest of fruit trees”, and pears for perry are nearly as popular as cider. The deep, rich soil lends itself to these trees

Fish

The county's streams are well stocked, so fresh fish is abundant

Hops

The loamy soil lends itself to hop gardens (known in the area as hopyards) and 80 per cent of Herefordshire's parishes have been involved in cultivating hops at one time or another. Now that the hop industry is in decline farmers are growing hop asparagus (the first shoot of the hop plant, sold for about £300 a kilo)

Sources: thisisherefordshire.co.uk; visionofbritain.org.uk

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