The Market Gardener: A Successful Grower's Handbook for Small-Scale Organic Farming by Fortier, Jean-Martin

Grow better not bigger

AS LOCAL ORGANIC agriculture continues to flourish, young professional growers like Jean-Martin Fortier are leading the way with their innovative ideas about how to start a farm. Growing on just 1.5 acres, he and his wife have been making a good living from their vegetable operation for over 10 years, feeding more than 200 families through their thriving CSA and seasonal market stand.

Based on low-tech, high-yield methods of production, The Market Gardener is packed with practical information on:

• Setting-up a micro-farm by designing biologically intensive cropping systems, all with negligible capital outlay
• Farming without a tractor and minimizing fossil-fuel inputs through the use of the best hand tools, appropriate machinery and minimum tillage practices
• Growing mixed vegetables systematically with attention to weed and pest management, crop yields, harvest periods and pricing approaches.

The Market Gardener is a complete, modern, micro-scale farming handbook which shows that making a living wage growing food without large capital outlay or access to an acreage may be closer than you think.

Author: Jean-Martin Fortier
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 03/01/2014
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 8.50h x 8.56w x 0.75d
ISBN: 9780865717657

About the Author

Jean-Martin Fortier and his wife Maude-Hélène Desroches are the founders of Les Jardins de la Grelinette, an internationally recognized micro-farm famous for its high productivity-profitability using low-tech, high-yield methods of production. A leading practitioner of biologically intensive cropping systems, Jean-Martin has more than a decade's worth of experience in mixed organic farming. He has written articles about his work for popular magazines such as Canadian Organic Grower , La Terre de Chez Nous and Growing for Market . He also contributes occasionally as a tool and equipment advisor for companies such as Johnny's Selected Seeds and Dubois Agrinovation. The original French language version of this book, Le Jardinier-Maraîcher , released in Fall 2012, has sold more than 15,000 copies