Jules’s father, a second-generation immigrant, practised chemical-free gardening and passed his passion on to his son. In the early 1970s, after Jules married his college sweetheart, Mignon, and moved to New Zealand, he developed his first organic vegetable garden, and when a swarm of bees landed on the building next door, he coaxed them into a series of hives and so began a lucrative honey business.
 

After Anais was born in 1974, Jules and his family moved back to the US. In Florida, the young family lived in a trailer home. While he sometimes taught math, he mostly did unskilled labour, picking oranges and mowing lawns. Then, in 1984, the family moved to Pasadena so Jules, a follower of the radio evangelist Herbert V Armstrong, could attend religious college in hopes of becoming a preacher. However, when Armstrong died, Jules left the church and the family was stranded in the middle of Pasadena’s least desirable neighbourhood.
 

Things went from bad to worse when Mignon left Jules in 1989. "The stress of the church break-up dismantled the marriage," he says, adding simply, "I wanted the children and she didn’t contest that." Mignon lives in New Orleans, but "still assists with some of our endeavours," Jules says.) After that, the family embarked on a particularly dire period, which they refer to as 'the brown years’, when Jules decided they were too poor even to water their front lawn and covered it over with mulch.

Jules bought a pack of wildflower seeds in an attempt to conceal the mud, and when the flowers burst into life the next winter, Jules (who had been reading an article about local restaurants using edible flowers), realised he had a business growing in his front garden. For 10 years, the family sold edible flowers to a dozen restaurants and caterers, but the dotcom crash in 2000 wiped out their business. However, a year later, the family embarked on its radical self-sufficiency project. The Dervaeses now supply four or five restaurants and caterers with fruit and vegetables.

Waiting for us at a chic little restaurant called Elements is the chef and owner, Onil Chibas, who has been buying the Dervaeses’ greens, edible flowers and duck eggs for four years. He insists that I try two of his dishes which employ Dervaes produce, and while I eat a heavenly goat’s cheese salad followed by a duck salad, he tells me, "If Jules could grow enough produce, I would never buy anything else. His vegetables are amazing. Everyone comments on them."

As the Dervaeses and their animals enjoy robust good health, they have little need of vets or doctors – just as well, since the family avoids vaccines and medical drugs, believing they do more harm than good. The Dervaes children have no dental fillings and if they get sick they 'tough it out’ with a homebrew of Swedish bitters prepared by Anais. For the animals, Jordanne has devised a holistic remedy bag that includes baking soda and yogurt for when the goats get upset stomachs, arnica and massage for when a duck strains its leg.
 

It seems obvious that the Devaeses’ lifestyle is far healthier for the planet and for them than the way most of us conduct our lives – guzzling gas, drugs, electricity, oil, chemicals, plastic and consumer goods and living overscheduled stressed-out lives. But my main worry before visiting them was the emotional toll this intensive lifestyle might have on the younger family members. It seemed odd, even cultish, that three adult offspring would be still living at home, unmarried and working six days a week. Surely they ought to be cultivating families and partners of their own. A fourth Dervaes child, Jeremy, 28, dropped out of the homestead project four years ago. "He wanted to fit in," Jordanne says by way of explanation. But the others seem confident, independent and happy to be living what Anais calls 'a purpose-driven life’.