How Market Gardner, JM Fortier, Farms 8 Acres (Without A Tractor)

um these beds are all permanent so we don't we never till and we use black tarps to clear the beds wait a minute you never till how do you never till we don't till we just when we're done with this crop now we're harvesting [Music] here we are at today's Farm feature Quebec Canada another rainy day so we've got the umbrella up JM Fortier the market gardener where is he I don't know we're going to have to go find him he said he'd be working out in the fields when I contacted him last night I don't know if he knew it was going to rain but sometimes in farming it doesn't matter if it's raining you got to do what you got to do very nice place I think there's people over here oh we found some people oh my word look at this place [Music] mayy we can change our world [Music] around maybe we can waste this F [Music] ground the time we have may never come around around the time we have can surely be right [Music] now absolutely beautiful garden beds I love what he's doing with mixing the things together this not the most beautiful gardens you've ever seen comfrey all kinds of things planted on this mound absolutely beautiful Market Garden here excuse me you know where JM is you know where JM is no he didn't know he didn't know who is that maybe we found him good morning what a beautiful family yeah I don't know if I told you about my crew hi JM yeah nice to meet you bud I'm Rebecca hi Rebecca it's nice to meet you are you the mother I am okay I kiss you okay okay all right you're in Quebec now that's what we do hey guys say hey hi hi where are you guys coming from oh shees that's warm there it is yes this is like are you expecting this I wasn't either yeah I know you can get really dirty here like you can put mud everywhere you want and it's just it's awesome okay and then mom's face and then Mom deals with it she's all like no wa she's saying thanks JM tell about the place as we walk here all right so this is an experimental Farm there's a pastured pigs and then free range chickens and there's beef that are mob grazing pastures around an 8 acre Market Garden yeah it's a really big project um we started this project 3 years ago it's financed by this super wealthy business person that wanted to give a legacy of Hope for farmers Legacy yeah and so me and a bunch of other designers permaculture designers designed the market Garden to be quite big it's using pretty much the same techniques that I've come up with in my book and in my work but we've kind of like made it more massive so that we can train more people that's the purpose here and experiment using new tools and techniques and cool what's the name of your book for those who don't know uh the market Gardener okay and it talks about making a livelihood on 1.5 Acres and uh so small small scale farming and no tractor hand tools but you know people that read the book they they get inspired by it because you can make a really good living doing that but you need to you know have certain techniques and tools that are appropriate for what you do and strategies management strategies to you know grow 40 to 50 different veggies at the same time so we're and I've been I I can say quite successful at this for for a while this is is going to be my 16th growing season nice and but now this this project was kind of a stretch my rubber band to the Max uh cuz now we're doing four times more production we've doubled the team um but we've added a lot of key features on the site like flowering hedge R to attract beneficial insects and birds and pollinators and is that's what's over here yeah these are can you come show me what's in that uh yeah well they're all they're it's a guild of different plants that are either attracting beneficials or attracting Birds yeah with the bird's house because you know the birds when they nest they eat a lot of insects like a lot yeah so you know these guys are coming down and if there's I don't know cucumber beels or whatever these guys will come down and eat some of them and so we're trying to recreate an ecosystem that will Pro generate so much uh activity yes that you know pests won't have room to establish themselves okay so why hedro is it on Contour or what's the the what's the point of actually getting it elevated okay is because they're also wind brakes oh okay so they're actually Dual Purpose there's wind braks between each field blocks yeah and also you know habitats for okay FL the font what do you have planted in there uh I don't know all their names actually that's where the designer crew crew came really useful okay good um but what what I when we started that project and I don't know how geeky you want me to be with this gave them a list of 10 insects that were problematic yeah and then they research uh predatory insects of these and then they established which habitats these guys and then we formed guilds out of these nice but we didn't know if it would work did it and but we we're still we're figuring it out finding it out so how long's that hedro been there that's it's third season okay see you can see the birds coming back and forth okay nice you see them yeah I don't know what they're called in English these they're blue and then they have like v-shaped um yeah I don't know sparrows I think I not sure um these beds are all permanent so we don't we never till and we use black tarps to clear the beds wait a minute you never till how do you never till we don't till we just when we're done with the this crop now we're harvesting here and hey you guys if you want these are the look come here he's got a snack oh wow you can pick those and they're awesome right there go get one they're all free you want one they're all free 25 cents each so we we do intens biointensive uh production here so we are creating super healthy soil because we don't turn it we don't rotor tail it and then uh we can gang up the crops really close together yeah so that the leaves they form a canopy so it creates like a cover which is good for the soil and the insects and the and the animals in the soil and when we're done we just put a black tarp over it Ah that's what's happened here you've been done you're going to black tarp it how long do you keep the black tarp on it well it depends what was there before but you see that when you remove the T it just killed things that were there cool so once this is dead and it's almost dead another week then we just used another tool called the Harrow which is about an inch and we just recreate a new seed bed and then we pl right back in okay say say the name of that tool again uh Harrow okay pararo um if people visit my website they'll see all the tools that I use all right what's the name of your website the marketer.com all right we'll link that too this one right here come on Mr Brown you got to get one he keeps grabbing weeds oh so did you find good ones he's right here grab that he's trying grab it there you go pull that right out of there buddy let's get the dirt off of it let Mommy help you get the dirt off this is I shared that with the kids delicious yeah so how do you eat wow juicy not spicy so it's not spicy that's to deal with Sharps and per bed okay and the Intensive spacing is everything in here permanent bedding yep wa and that's why you can invest in the landscape because these beds you know they're they're there forever yeah and then and they're worth a lot there's about you know from $400 to $800 of production per bed and then we'll cycle those and have two or three or four harvests per season wow and so by intensifying everything you generate more revenues per square fet and you are you become more efficient nice so if I can say that I one of my fame to claim if I can say that is that I don't use a tractor cool and I advocate young Farmers not to start with a tractor like I think the tractor is the problem in most Farm set they he that they want that's the first thing want no they love the tractors but actually if you want to have a toy go get a tractor but it's just the spacing here doesn't allow a tractor there's your tractor right there exactly see the worm I love this chilling it up this is exact the soil right there on the surface and that's why we don't plow yeah and these guys are doing biological pillage coming back and forth chewing up and also under the black tarps this is their preferred habitat because the soil is covered they really dig it yeah so we creating natural systems but also streamlining a lot of how we work to become really efficient and that's how we're able to have a you know a good life too not just like work like maniacs cool how many hours a week do you work uh we work like 45 50 hours oh wow good we work that the crew started at 800 and they'll be gone at 5:30 and nice tell us about your tunnels here this is not a typical these are caterpillar tunnels oh caterpillar tunnels so we can uh put them here for the start of the Season then we'll move them again in the summer so they're all simple they're less than a dollar per square ft to built uh but they they really work less than a dollar per square feet so you don't have any like Mega green houses yeah we do also you do those have a rooll too yeah you'll be uh you'll be kind of Blown Away by that okay and so we use these early on in the spring and in the fall for do for early crops and in the summer we'll either put uh Shake clot over them or we'll just remove the plastic okay nice yeah hell and everybody's snacking on turnips I say yeah the turnup party so you know here when Quebec so we're at end of May and it's been really cold spring yeah we're still pumping out nice stuff uh yeah all these techniques caterpillar tunnels then we're using row covers next up cucumbers Jose you're going to be excited about that you got any 2 lb cucumbers JM uh 2 lb I'm not sure about that we might find one if we find one that means that somebody didn't do the job cuz there's supposed to yeah to to Pig them every day jde has been known to eat a two 2 lb cucumber in one day all right jde put your cucumber up there holy ma 2 lb and 3 oz you think you can really eat that today yeah okay I don't want to eat mine today you don't have to only if you want to J will you the challenge not yeah hey when are you going to get started uh now okay he's diving in folks that thing takes up more than your entire plate yeah look those are huge look those are humongous you good and I have zoom in one day Doo you to yeah so now we're in in Montreal Nation here Quebec Canada everything is hockey and so the famous Montreal Canadians and so that's the first gold tender to wear a mask and his name is plant which is plant in English and so the owner of the farm decided that he would be like the totem the guardian of the garden there he is this is so cool I love it com Frey this is just so encouraging to see all this why aren't more people doing this well people are rediscovering old ways of farming this this used to be like that in France we used to have Dr like these everywhere we're just bring you're just bringing back old old ways yeah old ways with new new new systems and new ways of looking at production so you know this is like salad mix and it's all mixed in the fields and diversity and then the HED RS around it and now since you're weeding with the tarps isn't that easier yeah yeah because under the tarp just the tarp uh triggers the growth of dormant wheat seeds yeah because it's warm it's moist and it's dark so the weed SE they germinate and then there's no light so they die so we use that a lot is there any leeching of plastic nope cool these are all silage tarps UV treated they'll be good for many many many years nice how does that not get in my salad mix that I buy at the store do you have to like hand go through it we Harvest we hand Harvest everything oh so okay so you can see yeah what you're that's why we have knee pads oh because we're on our knees a lot okay uh so yeah everything's so the revolution is that we're moving away from farms where everything's mechanized and boring and where there's no apology to Farms that are smaller and vibrant and a lot of things happening and the crew gets to pick this and pick that and do this and do that they they're doing four or five different chores every day it keeps them happy and we're still productive and it's just another level of energy putting into all of this and then people eating this food are feeling it too yeah and and so that's what I've been kind of doing and pre preaching and promoting for for for a while and and and and my my call is that we need to replace mass production with production by the mass to get more people into doing this like and you can make a really nice living you can live in the countryside it's a lot of work but you know if you know what you're doing how much were you able to make on your 1 and A2 Acres uh 150k nice yeah for for a very long time yeah and uh still today you know the farm is just we're at that kind of same acreage and we're increasing the sales every year but uh the costs are not so expensive you know farming with hand tools and this is not that crazy and anybody could do this even if they don't own the land they could oh you're doing this you don't own this land no I don't no you don't need to own the land what you need though is to know what you're doing yeah so you can't improvise all of this so you need to know the basics and you know how do they learn the basics well most people learn by doing them but you know if you read the market Gardener that's a good step but if you if you can follow in the footstep of a successful grower that knows what they're doing that's that's really the key cool um it's like a baker you know you can't you can make bread but are you going to be a baker like making bread and being a baker and running a bakery is two things but you can still become one but you need to get training and you need to at least have a little bit of sense of how to run a bakery these are all hand tools and that's the Harrow I was telling you about this is it yeah this is it it's mounted on a VCS and so that's a two wheel tractor so we don't use a tractor but we use a two wheel tractor it's more adapted for human scale farming and push seaters and and hose and all sorts of different tools that are all hand operated and uh on my farm you know these are all the tools that we use on this Farm we're just scaling up so instead of having one BCS we have two okay and so but that's we're here to teach people how to create you know successful Farms using these hand tools so what's the tool that's on this right now the Implement that's a power Harrow it's used to work the soil but not disturb it because it doesn't inverse it has Tes that steer instead of like like that so you're not bringing you're not mixing your soil you're not destroying the habitat of the earthworms you're just kind of like steering like that slowly working on an inch you like tool section buddy you like that tractor that's the only tractor he uses on this big Old Farm onward to The Green House wait a minute Tomatoes it is cold out there you guys see how we're dressed oh you're fogging up you guys can pick tomatoes but only the really red red ones okay wow let's do it oh my word I'm going to be this y exactly like super red ones I love tomatoes they're at my one yes you my kids are not oh cucumbers there guys can I eat a cucumber yeah you can take cucumbers hey how you doing how you doing good man I watch your videos all the time okay good right on nice to meet you so how is it now wait a minute you're having a you're we having a cucumber in Canada almost June and it's cold outside look at our coats good job JM he says they they Heat this in the spring and the fall and in the summer also in the summer yeah so heat loving crops but in the winter they turn it off and grow cold cold hearty crops in here yep turn and salads and and strawberries nice thought we took them out but strawberries were in there these bags of air here the heat is actually circulating through there that's got holes in it oh strawberries are you taking advantage here of space and you're going to grow up here and down below or not um not now but in the in the spring there's something underneath there's spinach growing and then we bring these boxes from the cold room okay and so the strawberries are dormant me them out and then we put them here and then they they they grow and then there's spinach that we're harvesting underneath that was sewn in September and so we're harvesting strawberries in April wowow I bet your customers are loving that yeah and there's super good like they're sweet strawberries like not the California style no what are the rubber bands on your hands uh for harvesting okay oh you wrap it right there just grab your bunch thought I was harvesting so so they're growing outside in the summer okay then come the fall we'll top them okay and we'll bring them inside the cold room okay like a fridge and they'll stay in the fridge for like 4 months okay and then we'll bring them out and then they'll grow okay and you put them in here is it heated in here then when you're doing it well it's semi heated like in March it's like yeah it out it's pumping wow wa man cool no put that big ones e you guys want to keep one you can have this one it's too big to sell what's your name and what's your role here my name's Ryan and I'm a market Gardener here with JM uh we Harvest we plant we wash we sell where you from uh just Easter Toronto in Ontario okay yeah so good work you guys are doing here thanks man you too Ryan's an awesome guy you want me to you guys walked up on cucumbers get in get a little they're coming out of every pocket every pocket little Mr Brown's Got A Little Cucumber you need a little help yeah take a photo can I take a photo you got a new fan Mr Brown you're new number one fan have you have you got a C what's your name and where you from uh my name's Hanah and I'm from New Zealand okay yeah so come to grow the Cucumbers for you are you going back to New Zealand and starting a farm yeah it's the eventual plan but at the moment I don't know when I want to go back there's a lot to learn out here I know yeah there and especially in North America so getting out of itty bitty cucumber okay you got your little itty bitty cucumber you ready do not forget it's in there please okay you guys ready let's go see the you know he's going to forget that cucumber in there cucumber look what we're going to find out we're going to be like where's this liquid coming from [Music] carrots we can pull carrots that's egg plant n don't walk to the bed walk to the side there you go and then you just be happy and chew on them I got a big one looking for W looking for a k pull your own hold one get in wait wait wait we should help him he's going to p a bunch of uh here pull right here down there no no no no no no no right here pull that one it's a baby carrot like you you guys love carrots going to be the best carrots you've ever tasted yeah you did get a big one yeah I let Mommy clean off the dirt yep I you got to take off your jacket y you come how is it good here you go gide in okay can you clean off this C clean it off we have a big one for Papa yes thank you I have two for me I'm going to W it but I don't know okay guys I want to show you something else we can eat those these are baby cucumbers uhhuh and they're really good I don't really like it is very good oh my gosh so good I can't eat you're done you ate your carrot good job buddy so how are you different than Elliot Coleman younger so you're the new ellot Coleman I wouldn't say that but ot's going to be 77 so okay um yeah I'm following in his footsteps and always been inspired by not only his work but how genuine he is and all that he's really cool yeah um just doing things differently um same kind of model but kind of steering it in different directions yeah I think I see more parmac culture here yeah with the other plants the ponds yeah um just like new ideas also you know like new ways of thinking about stuff and like well you're using the plastic he doesn't use that yeah and you know you're friends with Curtis like Curtis Stone also all of this new way of looking at production high yield like pumping it out talking about money and just kind of yeah and marketing too I mean there's a new way of marketing now y with the internet and social media so it's natural farming Natural Market gardening like we're I'm really big into that like cycles and systems and ecology but designs and and workflows and and prices and management and all of that all this is really important in farming yes we're going to go see the chickens notice the kids all got some from the my gosh they got their launch here hope that's okay funny you they have the cucumbers and then the carrots they're ready to go you got to watch they were craving I think for real food like every every two or 3 week we go here at the local poutine place coutin is the famous food what is that french fries gravy and Cur cheese curs can I find that organic no it can only buy greasy and and kind of like that's comfort food that we eat here once in a while once in a while so we with the crew we go there once in a while y to eat hot dogs and just kind of like give up for a night yeah it makes us feel good beautiful fi of garlic thank you oh mulched with straw mobile Chicken cops pre-arranged uh chickens and it's really awesome you move them around in this area here or do you move them to other places yeah they're following the the cattle just like uh Joel does so this and this is not new for you guys right but the fact that we're doing this here in Quebec is is revolutionary everything cuz cuz we have quotas here in Quebec where if you want to have 100 or more chickens you need to buy a quota from the government wow and so and the quotas are like $250 per chicken what yeah and so nobody's growing free range farm eggs no and and we're basically kind of the not the only ones but we're and we're promoting this and we're talking about it and it's just kind of opening up a lot of doors for [Music] [Music] others maybe we should hold against the [Music] AR baby favor plays our car the time is now and never cease to [Applause] change time it gives you more than you can make [Music] oh oh [Music] maybe we can change our world around J has invited us to lunch at the garage look at this garage glass rail you kidding me this is some garage you're a mess can I take your pants off too y I can can I take pants off no just don't sit on anything oh my gosh you got to see this check it out they don't play do they this is for [Music] Gideon this is the way Farmers should be treated right man I like the way you treat your Farmers they're you know we're expecting a lot out of them yeah so lunch is a good good place for us to to be and this this is a building that serves like a lot of different purposes but we we get to eat here it's beautiful and we eat like kings yeah all fresh food from the garden do you have a chef there's a commercial kitchen down there and so they're transforming a lot of the stuff but they're also taking an hour to prepare meal for the staff nice with what we have cool and that's part of the integrated Farm [Music] yeah [Music] see you found the [Music] tomatoes all right JM thank you so much we're going I'm going back to to the battlefield I know you're going back to the battlefield you've been rested put up in this nice accommodation is this not what Farmers deserve is it not it is tonight is this so nice Okay I really appreciate this guy for investing in this and really believing it and pushing the movement forward so thank you for joining that mission with him all right safe travel thank you for the tour see you in North Carolina okay right deal guys is your house everybody power she's like what do I do with this okay there Mr Brown hit his [Laughter] wrist all right guys have fun thank you for your visit y it was fun I can't get her out of here so comtable here you don't want to leave do you oh you found this bat it's kind of cold outside so there it is but here it is this is the book that he wrote check it out the market Gardener we'll leave a link in the [Music] description

Channel: Justin Rhodes

Views: 521,528

Keywords: market garden, jm fortier, the market gardner, jean-martin fortier, jean martin fortier

Id: 90OUMVf3XPc

Length: 33min 9sec (1989 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2017