The Market Gardener
This is a thorough farming manual that lays out a human-scale farming system centered on good growing practices and appropriate technology. Had I read this book when I was a starting farmer, I would now be farming with a walking tractor on an acre and hailing Jean-Martin as my market gardening guru! This book is going to inspire new farmers to stay small and farm profitably.
— Dan Brisebois, author, Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers, farmer at Tournesol cooperative farm, Canada.
Jean-Martin’s book is very well done and should be of great use to market growers everywhere. Exchange of ideas and information is so important because when we pass ideas on, the next person gets to start where we got to and take the ideas to another level.
— Eliot Coleman, organic farming pioneer and author, The Winter Harvest Handbook
The Market Gardener is a very technical yet practical book. What Jean-Martin has done with his micro-farm requires a great deal of planning, good management practices and tough full reflections about new (renewed) horticultural practices, which he shares generously. For ether the home or market garden this book might be as useful as... la grelinette!
— Joseph Templier, French master grower and co-author, ADABIO guide de l’auto-construction
In France, The Market Gardener has quickly become a book of reference for small-scale farming. Both visionary and practical, it is a work of rare intelligence. By sharing a way to work the land for abundance of growth in respect of ecological principles, Jean-Martin offers a new way of connecting to the earth and we thank him for it.
— Charles Herve-Gruyer, Permaculture teacher and grower at la Fermedu BecHellouin, France
How do we encourage a new generation of ecological, small-scale farmers? By showing that farming can be a viable, stimulating, and respected career choice. This book offers the hope that a small-scale diversified market garden can be both profitable and personally fulfilling and then goes on to give practical advice on just how to do it. I would offer this book to any new or wannabe vegetable farmer as well as to my seasoned mentors. I can’t wait to see how the practices I’ve read about manifest on my own farm this coming growing season and in the years to come. This is an important new book in my farm library.
— Shannon Jones, small-scale organic market gardener Broadfork Farm, River Hebert, NS
This is a fantastic addition to any aspiring market gardener’s library, and even has a few new ideas for old hands. Jean-Martin has laid out all of the basics for how we can farm more profitability, productively, and passionately on a more human sized scale. This book goes beyond the theoretical, providing valuable details from his own market garden and his experiences over the years. All of this is made even more valuable because of his acknowledgement of the importance of place and also that there is an evolution to any endeavor. Grounding us with an explanation of his own small farm history and location makes it easier for us to learn from his experiences and apply them to our own small farms.
—Josh Volk, Slow Hand Farm, Portland, Oregon
Jean-Martin Fortier extols the virtues of being small-scale, and expertly details the use of such scale-appropriate tools as broadforks, seeders, hoes, flame weeders, low tunnels, high tunnels, and many other unique tools, specifically designed for this brand of farming. He picks up right where Eliot Coleman has left us, applying many of his core principles, but doing it in such a brilliant way as to provide beginning farmers a solid framework of the information they need to start up and become successful small-scale organic growers themselves.
— Adam Lemieux, Product Manager of Tools & Supplies Johnny’s Selected Seeds
Jean-Martin Fortier takes our hands and our hearts in his, as he recounts the lessons, practices and motivations behind his incredibly productive and profitable market garden business.
As he leads us through his packing, potting and work sheds, his greenhouses, his fields and his markets we come to know the grounded reasons behind his choices, the surprisingly relaxed rhythm of their lifestyle and work and the simple yet efficient techniques he and his partner employ on their farm. Through his tale, he inspires new and older famers alike to continue to learn how to farm better, and to continue to question the logic of getting ‘bigger’.
In his frank, unassuming style, Jean-Martin creates an infallible argument for the sound economics and the appealing lifestyle of his small farm operation. And as he shares all of his farms “secrets of success” he convinces us that anyone—who is smart, determined and hard-working—can build a farm like his.
As Jean-Martin points out, new farmers today have both the choice and ability to build viable small farm operations. But, as he places their choices in the context of a world with increasing complex and fragile ecological, food and financial systems, with the distance between each other and our natural world growing, it is clear that farmers not only have the choice but they have an imperative to take up the calling and build meaningful farm livelihoods that will continue to sustain themselves and all of us.
— Christie Young, Founder and Executive Director of FarmStart