Book Review: Le Jardinier-Maraîcher

This is a book review I wrote for Canadian Organic Growers new website for their magazine  (http://magazine.cog.ca) and to help promote translate Le Jardinier-Maraîcher.

Last fall, Jean-Martin Fortier published Le Jardinier-Maraîcher (French for The Market Gardener) about growing organic vegetable profitably on a small acreage.

This is a thorough farming manual that lays out a human-scale farming system centered on good growing practices and appropriate technology. It is based on Jean-Martin and his wife Maude-Hélène’s farm experience at Les Jardins de La Grelinette. Le Jardinier-Maraîcher presents a similar growing philosophy to The New Organic Grower – Elliot Coleman’s seminal work that fueled a new generation of small vegetable farms (including Jean-Martin and Maude-Hélène). But Jean-Martin goes further. Le Jardinier-Maraîcher provides much more detailed information on crop yields, harvest periods, and pricing approaches. It brings more practical perspectives on a number of topics including crop rotation. This is a complete modern small-scale farming handbook.

For years, Jean-Martin had been telling me about this book he was writing to inspire and teach new farmers. I thought it was a fantastic ambition but for the longest time I doubted this book would see fruition. After all, though la Grelinette is a small farm in size, Jean-Martin and Maude-Helène do feed 140 families through their CSA, run two market stands, and supply their signature mesclun salad mix to a number of restaurants and stores; in addition to raising two kids and a dairy goat. Yeah, I didn’t think this book would be published. Yet, here it is.

That Jean-Martin wrote and published this book is a testament to the power of les Jardins de la Grelinette’s farming approach. Jean-Martin dedicated both a number of winters to this writing project and the large part of two growing seasons while Maude-Hélène managed the farm and maintained the same scale of operations. Not every farm can relieve half of its management force and thrive as effectively. But the farming system Jean-Martin and Maude-Hélène built has been able to provide both a profitable livelihood and a great quality of life.

Had I read this book when I was a starting farmer, I would now be farming with a BCS 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. I encourage you all to go out and learn French to read this book, or you can go and support FarmStart’s campaign to get this book translated into English!

2013 Tourne-Sol seed catalog

We’ve finally finished out 2013 seed catalog. You can download it from the Tourne-Sol website.

Last year we’d set a Jan. 1 release date target. Though Stella has been a big help with germ tests and seed packing this winter, we’re a bit behind on that release date! Maybe next year …

Also, Jordan Marr interviewed me for the ruminant podcast. You can hear the first part of our conversation about seed production.

 

French webinar on integrating seed production into market gardens

Happy New Year!

On Tuesday Jan. 15, I’m giving a webinar on integrating seed production into market gardens in French for Farmstart. The details are below. I will be giving the same webinar in English in early February. When the dates are confirmed, I will post them.

Webinaire sur comment intégrer la conservation de semences dans une
production maraîchère 

Le mardi 15 Janvier (19h00 – 20h30)

Présenté par la FarmON Alliance en partenariat avec Cultivons Biologique Canada  

Les maraîchers ont quelques bonnes opportunités comme semencier. Ils sont équipées pour gérer une production diversifiée, ils savent ce qu’ils veulent dans leurs variétés de légumes et ils peuvent récolter une portion de leurs cultures de semences pour vendre comme légume. Bien sur, il faut considérer le main d’œuvre, les distances d’isolement et les superficies nécessaires quand vous ajoutez des cultures pour semences sur votre ferme. Par contre, ça vaut la peine de le faire pour augmenter votre diversité agro-écologique, réduire vos dépenses, garantir une source pour certaines variétés critiques et
peut-être même diversifier vos sources de revenues.

Daniel Brisebois est un des 5 fermiers de la ferme cooperative Tourne-Sol. Il est co-auteur de “Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers”. Daniel écrit un blog sur la production de semences (goingtoseed.wordpress.com). Daniel est sur la comité de direction du Réseau des Semenciers Biologique de Canada de l’Est et il est président de Cultivons Biologique Canada. Vous pouvez le rejoindre à daniel@fermetournesol.qc.ca

Coût: 20$

Pour obtenir plus d’information contactez: ali@farmstart.ca ou 519 836 7046 x 104

Inscription: cliquez ici

 

2012 BC Seeds Gathering Videos

The November 9-11, 2012 weekend was a seedy one cross Canada. I’ve already reported back about ECOSGN’s Seed Connection conference in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC. On the other side of the country the BC Seeds Network had a 3-day BC Seeds Gathering and it sounds like it was just as fantastic as the East Coast event.

Farm Folk City Folk has begun to post videos from the event on youtube. Here’s what they’ve posted so far:

Don Tipping

Don Tipping speaks about how seeds fits into his seed company Siskiyou Seeds, the Family Farmers Seed Cooperative he participates in, and on Seven Seeds Farm ( the biodynamic/permaculture farm where Don grows organic seed amidst vegetables and livestock).

Opening Plenary part 1

Suzie Walsh (USC Canada) and Patrick Steiner (Stellar Seeds) open the event integrating the BC seed picture into the Canadian and international seed picture.

Opening Plenary part 2

A number of seedy folks come up and speaks about their interest in seed.

One More Video

This video isn’t actually from the conference but it is about BC Seed Grower Dan Jason (Salt Spring Seeds) so I thought it still fits. It is also only 3 minutes.

True Garlic Seed Update

Have you been wondering what happened with my attempt to produce true garlic seed? Here’s how it went …

(Reminder: True garlic seed is different from the bulbils that appear in mature garlic scapes. You can read a true garlic seed primer and a garlic bulbil primer in past GTS posts. Or read Ted Meredith and Avram Drucker’s  introduction to producing true garlic seed.)

July 11, 2012 – Harvest Scapes and Remove Bulbils

I already posted about this step in my true garlic seed primer. In this case though I removed the bulbils from harvested garlic scapes sitting in a bucket of water.

August 7, 2012 – Garlic in Bloom

August 17, 2012 – The Bulbils That Got Away

It’s hard to remove every last bulbil the first time, especially the littlest bulbils. I tried to check regularly and remove any bulbils I missed. A few got away.

These garlic scapes were harvested at the same time as those for garlic seed. Their bulbils are fully formed and their flowers have long since dried up.

August 26, 2012 – Swollen Garlic Ovaries

This is when I got excited.

End September, 2012 – Harvest Seed Heads

At this point the garlic stems had dried up and the flowers were drying down though I still couldn’t see any mature seed.

I cut the seed heads and put them in paper bags.

NOvember 28, 2012 – Garlic Seed

Yesterday I opened up my paper bags and found …

These garlic seeds came from a rocambole garlic named Quebec. Quebec is a variety we’ve been growing for years. My co-farmer Fred originally picked it up at farmer’s market but otherwise  we don’t know anything else about its history.

January to March 2013 – Starting TRue GArlic Seed

Though I am pretty stoked, getting the garlic seed is only the first step. In January or February, I’ll follow Ted Meredith and Avram Drucker’s indications to bleach and cold treat the seed. I’ll seed them in March in the greenhouse and wait to see how many germinate. ( First generation true garlic seed reputedly has low germination.)

Summer 2013 And Beyond …

From there …

Well, I’ll keep you all posted!

Looking back at SEED CONNECTIONS 2012

Last weekend was a watershed moment in the Eastern Canadian organic seedscape. A hundred or so seed growers, seed savers, farmers, gardeners, seed, seed sellers, seed buyers, academics, students, NGOs, and some folks who’d never even gardened met at Seed Connections 2012 in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue.

Frank Morton (from Wild Garden Seeds in Philomath, Oregon) opened the event demonstrating where seeds come from and how we can create our own genetic future in farming.

With a slide show of the Wild Garden fields and crops, Frank illustrated all the potentials when farmers save their own seed. How with selection and some cross-pollination, farmers can dramatically adapt and improve varieties to their needs. And though farmers can do this alone, teaming up with a plant breeder can bring these varieties even further.

A number of the more experienced seed growers had come to this event specifically to hear Frank Morton and he delivered but the conference did not stop there …

Over the weekend a number of topics were covered. Some technical such as  pollinators, seedborne disease, herb and flower seed production. Others addressed seed business management. A few sessions dabbled in both.

You can hear two interviews from the Seed Connections conference on CKUT’s Ecolibrium: Rowen White about her seed work (starts at 7 min 50 sec) and Kim Fellows about pollination (starts at 25 min.)

What really impressed me was the high caliber of presentation and discussion. Experienced seed growers and established seed companies were exchanging on the nuts and bolts of seed growing, seed breeding, and seed business. And even though some participants had limited seed experience, they were still welcome to be part of the discussion and did contribute to the discussion.

 

Rowen White wrapped the event up speaking about the seed wisdom of the Iroquois people. Rowen is from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne, curates an extensive collection of rare northeast native seeds, and is co-founder of the Sierra Seeds cooperative in California. (Rowen is also the author of Breeding Organic Vegetables – you can read my review.)

Rowen spoke about a number of different Mohawk varieties of corn and beans collected them from older members of the community, and how the cultural memory banking of these seed stories was just as important as saving the seeds.

These varieties were not always present in the Northeast. Corn first arrived 1200 years ago.  Some varieties were brought with the Tuscarora people from North Carolina in the early 1700s. And other varieties might have been from commercial catalogs at some time in the last century but have subsequently been saved in gardens.

Independent of their origin these varieties have been selected over cycles of seed saving for short season, polyculture planting, certain storage straits (such as corn braiding), disease resistance,  cold soil emergence, and different cultural connections. Rowen emphasized how this current diversity exists because farmers were willing to go in the field and mix it up. Seeds are dynamic, humans are dynamic, and the earth is dynamic.

Rowen stated that the work Frank Morton proposed is the work our agricultural ancestors have always done – adapting seeds to a place and to a people for growing characteristics, for culinary characteristics, and for aesthetics.

If you missed this event, don’t worry, we’re already planning the next Seed Connections for fall 2014 (likely in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue again). Stay tuned for more details …

 

Unforeseen Seed Selection Complications

I recently posted about selecting hot peppers and how I pay careful attention to each plant and place the fruits from individual plants into quarts.

I usually let these continue ripening in the quarts for a couple of weeks, and then choose those for seed.

Well, a few days after placing my peppers into quarts, but before saving any seed, there was a slight onion mishap.

A tower of red onions bags collapsed and tumbled into a rack of ripening peppers…

Emptying and mixing the quarts …

Leaving a mess of hot peppers with little way to distinguish accurately one pepper from another. Most of these peppers made their way from here to the market bin.

I was a little disappointed (perhaps a touch more than a little …) to lose a generation of selection.

On the bright side, I did take good records and I have remainder seed from last year. For 2013, based on my notes and pictures, I can narrow down the strains I grow out to those I really like this year.

Moral of the story: keep remainder seed and watch out for those onions!