to the English edition of Le Jardinier-Maraîcher
WRITING THIS BOOK WAS NO SMALL FEAT, and I have sunk countless hours into it. This writing adventure would never have been possible without the support of my family, the collaboration of our farm employees, and all the many volunteers who passed through to lend a hand. The long Quebec winter also played its part...
Different people have given their time to help in reviewing this book. I would especially like to thank my long-time friend Kory Goldberg for his dedicated and reflective comments and for his help in editing the manuscript. Ian LeCheminant’s sharp copy-editing, Scott Irving’s skill in translation, and John McKercher’s proficiency in layout and design have all contributed to this final product. Working with such talented people is a real blessing.
This book would not have been possible without the help of FarmStart Ontario, an organization dedicated to supporting a new generation of entrepreneurial, ecological farmers. Their crowd-funding project kick-started this translation. Special thanks to Christie Young for taking on the idea of bringing my work to a broader audience.
I offer my thanks to Severine von Tscharner Fleming, who so kindly agreed to write the foreword. It is the work of people like her that fosters a hospitable climate for us small-scale growers.
Finally, I would like to renew my recognition to everyone who helped out with the original French edition. Naming everyone here would be too long, but I cannot express enough gratitude to Marie Bilodeau for her great art work, Laure Waridel for such an inspiring foreword, and the whole team at Écosociété who believed in this book from the very beginning. The success of Le Jardinier-Maraîcher is a result of your collaboration. Merci.
In closing, I would like to thank two people for contributing to the person I am. First, my father, who taught me at a very young age the importance of being well-organized. This has been the best arrow in my quiver. And finally, thanks to Maude-Hélène Desroches, my work partner, my best friend, and the love of my life.
— Jean-Martin Fortier
FarmStart is a charitable organization in Canada that provides tools, resources, and support to help a new generation of entrepreneurial, ecological farmers to get their farms off the ground and to thrive. We need young farmers, new farmers, and more farmers to revitalize our rural communities, root resilient and sustainable food systems, and provide careful stewardship of our agricultural resources for generations to come.
We can’t make starting a farm easy, but FarmStart works to make it a little less risky, a little more accessible, and a lot less lonely.
In the winter of 2013, FarmStart began an online fundraising campaign to translate Le Jardiner-Maraîcher, the original French version of The Market Gardener. We felt it was important to make available in English this transformational guidebook that can inspire young and new vegetable farmers. This book provides practical information not only on how to start a market garden enterprise, at an affordable and accessible scale, but most importantly about how to make it both very productive and profitable.
We are thrilled that now a new generation of farmers will be able to read and reread what will be a beloved must-have in a vegetable grower’s library. We are excited to see how farmers will adopt and continue to adapt the ideas, techniques, and practices that Jean-Martin and Maude Hélène have proven to work on their farm and have shared with us in this fantastic guidebook.
We are grateful to all the donors who supported the fundraising campaign and made this translation possible. And we are thankful for all the passionate, pioneering, and dedicated farmers who are finding innovative and sustainable ways to grow delicious food on less land and with fewer resources. To have vibrant and resilient food systems in the future, we will need more of them.