​Le jardinier-maraîcher: Manuel d’agriculture biologique sur petite surface, Jean-Martin Fortier

The market gardener : A  successful grower’s handbook for small-scale organic farming, Jean-Marc Fortier
 
This very practical handbook is based on the experience of Jean-Martin Fortier and Maude-Hélène Desroches in establishing a successful small scale organic farm serving customers mostly through a CSA basket program, in the Eastern Townships of Québec. Their approach is centered on organic methods, intense planting,  and efficiency of work, enabling them to minimize how much they invest in equipment and people power. Given these goals, a lot (but not all) of their conclusions are very applicable to a homesteading garden, where minimizing work and investment are typically very important. Where the applicability breaks down is where they make decisions based on building their customer base, and also, because minimal attention is paid to planning a garden with the goal of preserving food over winter, as their business revolves around selling fresh produce.

I really enjoyed the way the book is organized – it is a true handbook, with chapters on every phase of setting up and operating a large garden. The first few chapters would be useful for someone who is still dreaming about homesteading. They cover how to chose the ideal property and how to set up your site. If you already have a property, you will probably only skim them. The rest of the chapters are dedicated to one topic each, including fertilizing, indoor seedlings, direct sowing, weeding, pests, prolonging the growing season, harvesting and planning your production.

Personally, I also enjoyed how throughout the book, the author shares the philosophy behind their approach. The themes of sustainability, anti-consumerism and seeking a balanced life resonated strongly with me. These themes don’t take over the book, but they do incite reflection and give an intention to the work.

There are many reference charts and appendices covering things such as rotation charts, crop spacing, planting calendars, solutions to common problems, etc.

There is also considerable attention given to the business side of things, which I found interesting but not very applicable to my situation, where my goal is feeding myself and my family, as opposed to growing a business.
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After my first reading of the book, I have a few take-aways that I am immediately putting into practice:

1. Crop rotation: in the past, I have had a general sense and goal of avoiding planting the same thing in the same place two years in a row, but this book gave a much clearer and systematic understanding of crop rotation. I now have a stronger understanding of the need to rotate between vegetable families, instead of between specific vegetables. For example, I should wait 3-4 years before planting a nightshade where another nightshade has been grown (the nightshade family includes tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplants, tobacco, and ground cherries). There is a very useful summary of a few other key rules to respect when planning crop rotation. Over the weekend, I reworked my garden overhead plan to fully incorporate crop rotation by family. For me, this means dividing up garden into 4 sections of 3 rows each and rotating rows within these sections. It was a bit of a logic puzzle to plan out, as there are many other constraints in my garden (row size, some rows being irrigated and others not, spacing available around the row etc).
2. Pairing up spring or fall crops with summer crops: for example, to double the use of a row, you can plant an early crop of spinach and once it is harvested and the warmer weather arrives, plant turnip in its place. Some other pairs I intend to use are: fall garlic and greens, green beans and fall garlic, sugar peas and lettuce, spinach and carrots.
3. Dense planting (less space between plants): I had already stumbled on my own into the principle of dense planting. From the start, I have always wanted to plant as many things as possible within the space that I have available, so I often disregarded the row spacing suggested on seed packets. Most of the time I didn’t notice any ill effects. For example, I often planted two onion bulbs one next to the other and harvested one early as a green onion and left the other to grow. The other advantage of dense planting is that it leaves less space for weeds. In this book, dense planting is strongly encouraged. The rule of thumb that is given is that plants should touch each other when they are three-quarters of their full size. This will give good coverage of the soil, minimizing weeds, mulching and keeping the ground cool and moist. Specific spacing for specific crops is outlined. This makes me more confident in continuing down the path of dense planting. This year, my onions will be going down in groups of four!
4. Better early planting calendar: I have never made good use of the time before the last frost. Typically I didn’t plant anything before end of May or beginning of June. Some of that is a habit that I formed before I transitioned to no-till gardening – at the time, I always had to wait for the garden to be dry before I tilled it. However, as I’ve landed on the proper configuration for my garden, with permanent beds and walking paths, and, as I’ve transitioned to a no-till approach, the spring brings a lot of possibility. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good idea of what to plant when. Luckily a planting calendar in the book answered all my questions.
5. Transitioning more crops from direct sowing to seedlings: My past rule of thumb has been that if something can be direct sown, I direct sow it. This helped me minimize the number of shelves, lighting, and other seed starting equipment I needed and transplanting time. However, with time, I have been able to acquire more seed starting space (which I use for Kratky in the winter). The book drove home that an early start means that you’ll not only get your crop earlier, but you’ll also and then have space for a crop of something else afterwards; this idea is appealing and gives me motivation for starting more seedlings this year.

 
Those are my immediately actionable items. The book also gave me some longer-term ideas. I would like to look into simple-ish ways to extend the growing season, such as floating covers, row tunnels, and maybe a small greenhouse. I am also curious to do some more scientific soil tests and to look into a more test-based approach to fertilizing my soil.
 
There were also some aspects to the book which were not really applicable to my situation, and I feel that they may not appeal to most homesteaders. The approach explained in the book is not a no-till approach – some light hand-operated machinery is used. It makes sense from a business perspective but on the kitchen garden scale, I prefer the simplicity, and lower investment, of a no till method. Some of the equipment, although much more affordable than typical farming machinery, is still a bit pricy if you aren’t planning to recoup your investment through sales. Similarly, the farm relies on manmade mulches, and some options are interesting, such as a cornstarch based biodegradable membrane that is incorporated in the soil in the fall. However, in my case I will stick to natural mulches such as leaves and grass cuttings, which I can get for free and which contribute to improving the quality of my clay-based soil.
 
In conclusion, I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a large garden, especially if they are based in zones 3-5. I would rank it as my second favorite book, after “Le Jardin Vivrier” by Marie Thévard – the reason I prefer the latter is because the scenario described in the latter is more similar to my own – a self-sufficiency goal, rather than a small business goal. Together, these two books make a powerful duo for people in a homesteading situation.

There is something to be said for finding free snacks wherever you go. In addition to growing my own food, I also enjoy foraging. The following quote from "Landmade - Eating the wild things" also speaks to me: "In a society that encourages - even insists on - constant consumption and consumerism, foraging your own food for free can be an act of rebellion". 

I think that most of us have had experiences with foraging, be it as simple as eating a few wild raspberries or strawberries in the summertime. I remember my grandmother showing me where to pick raspberries behind my grandparents' cottage when I was a child. I brought a tiny bucket back and had them over vanilla ice cream with a bit of maple syrup. So sweet! I also remember visiting our current property with the previous owner, just before moving in. He gave us a tour or the forest, the marsh, the fields and pointed out the raspberry bushes and the sugar maple in the forest, and I felt so lucky to become the custodian of this land. 

I have found it challenging to learn foraging from books or website, however, spending a couple hours with a local forager keen to share their knowledge was an incredible learning experience. In our case, we leveled up our knowledge with a foraging walk with the kind people of Landmade, at a location about half an hour from our property. I would not hesitate to recommend their walks and workshops. After our walk with Jess, our guide, we started to notice wild foods everywhere we went - on the side of the highway, in parks, and on our property. Our eyes were opened!

Here is a little gallery of some of the foods we forage on our property. These image are just meant to encourage you to get to know the land around you, and to pique your interest - please make sure you are certain of your identification before eating anything you forage.

I'll always remember the first time my nephew pulled on a carrot stem, and saw a carrot come up from the earth. Amazement! He couldn't believe that he had just pulled a carrot from the ground. Ever since he could toddle around, I have loved showing him all the places where food grows, whether it's berries, edible flowers or something in the garden. He's always loved "helping" in the garden. He spent most of last summer asking me to show him "a plant he's never seen before". Luckily there are lots of options on a hobby farm with a forest, a marsh, and lots of wildflowers.

​To build on this interest, last summer I gave him a seed catalog to look through. Before I knew it, he was taking it to bed every night and looking at the images. He even took it camping. Once it got tattered, I asked members of the local horticultural society for old seed catalogs, and they came through in a big way. Pretty soon my nephew had new catalogs to look through, and we had lots of spares to do activities with. On a cold snowy day, we cut out pictures from catalogs and made collages. We talked about how much we were looking forward to the garden, and how he would have his own little section in the garden this year. He asked what all the different plants were and which ones we could have in our garden.

I gave him scissors and a glue stick, and he did a collage of the plants he wants to have in the garden. For him that mostly meant "plants he's never seen before". Luckily I had ordered seeds for several of these based on past conversations. It was good practice for using scissors and observation skills, too.

​Once he was happy with his “garden” (and a little tired of cutting), we switched gears. I had drawn a rainbow and he looked for plants of all the different colors of the rainbow. I cut out his favorite ones and we pasted them on the rainbow. 

Of course, I had to make my own garden collage, too. I'm sure we'll find lots of other ways to use the seed catalogs.