The Market Gardener

Jean-Martin Fortier is a market farmer in Quebec who, along with his wife, Maude-Hélène Desroches and their two children, operates Les Jardins de la Grelinette.

 

 

 

 

With about an acre and a half of intensive diversified crops in production, they are able to support a CSA with over 140 members and attend two local farmer's markets. After 10 years of refining their craft, and trying to grow more and more out of their limited land base, they now gross more than $140,000 on their micro-farm.

 

  

Jean-Martin has clearly been influenced by the writings of Eliot Coleman, as many of his methods are straight out of Eliot's playbooks. As a result, he employs many tools that were developed by Eliot and Johnny's. He has even named his farm after one of them. 'La Grelinette' is the French name for what we call the broadfork, a two-handled fork invented in France by André Grelin in 1946.

 

 

 

It was redeveloped here in 1998 by Eliot Coleman and Johnny's Selected Seeds.

 

 

 

For many years now Jean-Martin has been describing his growing strategies and use of scale-appropriate technology on a web site and blog, where he promotes the idea of farming with hand tools (i.e.: they don't have tractor) as an alternative way of entering farming professionally.

In 2012, Jean-Martin published Le jardinier-maraîcher, a 200 page manual for small acreage organic agriculture. The book quickly became a Canadian best-seller and has since sold more than 15,000 copies.

 

 

 

In it, he describes (in French) the technical aspects of his operation and the tools that they use to make their labor efficient and cost-effective. Many of the drawings in the book illustrate Johnny's tools, including Broadforks (of course), the Tilther, several seeders including the Six Row Seeder, the Bed Prep Rake, Collinear and Stirrup Hoes, and the Wheel Hoe.

His approach in Le jardinier-maraîcher is that 'small is beautiful'. That is to say that he keeps his operation small and profitable, but it is more than that. It is not only about being profitable, but about enjoying life, enjoying what you do, and remembering to take time off regularly so that your work remains enjoyable. All this is feasible he stresses, if your operation is super efficient all the way through.

As a follow-up to The New Organic Grower in 1989 and Four-Season Harvest in 1992, Eliot Coleman released The Winter Harvest Handbook in 2009.

 

 

It was very well received by the public and included a great many things learned between that time and his last publication and many new innovations as well, particularly those centered around winter crop production. Converse to Jean-Martin, in 2013, he released a version of The Winter Harvest Handbook translated into French, entitled Des Legumes en Hiver.

 

 

In November of 2013, it seemed only natural that the two should promote their books together in France, and that is just what they did.

Dear Jean-Martin,

Chris Siladi shared your email and it reminded me that I had never thanked you for the book. It is very well done and should be of great use to market growers everywhere. But most delightful to me is the idea of your trip to France and Belgium. I love the exchange of ideas and information. And when we pass ideas on, the next person gets to start where we got to and take the ideas to another level. My most important early inspiration came from Louis Savier in France (as I wrote about in The Winter Harvest Handbook) and that jump-started my farming at a higher level and gave me the opportunity to add ideas of my own. You say in your book that my work inspired you (thank you for that compliment) and you have subsequently modified and improved upon that. So, I am delighted by the thought that all of this accumulated knowledge will soon return to France where it began in order to start the cycle all over again and hopefully spread even further and inspire future generations to excel our efforts.

I believe the Grelinette is still made in France by the son of the originator. It would be interesting to visit him.

Best,

Eliot

 

In Paris, they addressed a standing-room-only auditorium at the prestigious university, AgroParisTech.

 

 

 

 

 

Eliot also presented three other very well-attended workshops in both France and Austria.

 

 

 

In 2013, Jean-Martin also set out to publish an English version of Le jardinier-maraîcher and in January of 2014, the market gardener was published.

 

 

 

 

It included a very inspiring foreword by Severine von Tscharner Fleming.

 

 

Severine is director of the Greenhorns, "a non-traditional grassroots non-profit organization made up of young farmers and a diversity of collaborators",  whose mission "is to recruit, promote and support the new generation of young farmers". She is also a co-founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition, "a national network of young and sustainable farmers organizing for our collective success", who mission is to "represent, mobilize, and engage young farmers to ensure their success."

 

The following is a 'letter of praise' that I sent New Society Publishers after receiving a digital review copy before the book was published:

 

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 design for this brand of farming. He picks up right where Eliot Coleman has left us, applying many of his cotre principles, but doing it in such a brilliant way as to provide beginning farmers the information they need to start up and become successful small-scale growers themselves.

 

Jean-Martin remains a tools collaborator and field tester for Johnny's Selected Seeds and we are in frequent contact.

 

 

 

He is also a new member of the Slow Tools Group founded by Eliot Coleman and Barry Griffin. The group has met three years in a row now at the Stone Barns Center for Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, NY to brainstorm new ideas for scale appropriate tools for small commercial growers. We intend to keep that creative momentum going with another gathering in December.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Jean-Martin continues to promote his book through interviews, lectures and other speaking engagements.

At Johnny's Selected Seeds, we are more than proud to carry this fine publication in our line of books. You can find the market gardener on our website here.

 

Thanks!

Adam.

Adam Lemieux

Tools & Supplies Product Manager