Living Soil

Everything you need to know to grow amazing gardens.

I was thrilled with this series. I love the illustrations and pored over them. The techniques and strategies are useful and appropriate. The information is well organized and the language is clear. It is such a useful addition to home gardeners and commercial growers.

The Grower’s Guides from The Market Gardener series has something for everyone, from seasoned gardeners and small farmers, to newbies. Read it. Enjoy it. Learn from it. The contents of these books belie their small size; they are packed with solid information, which, along with the layout and illustrations, make for an engaging and very pleasant read.

It’s always fun and informative to read a seasoned grower’s tips and tricks for any crop. I know Jean-Martin has spent years refining his techniques, and it’s great to see his methods laid down in these little guide books.

Market gardening innovator Jean-Martin Fortier draws on his decades of experience in a difficult climate to share his strategies and techniques for producing high yields in healthy gardens.

Jean-Martin Fortier

Jean-Martin Fortier is a distinguished farmer, author, and educator who has been spearheading a movement in ecological agriculture for over twenty years. Since 2004, he and his wife have been operating Les Jardins de la Grelinette, an efficient and productive 2-acre microfarm, often referred to as a blueprint for effective human-scale organic farming.

In 2015, Jean-Martin established La Ferme des Quatre-Temps, a research farm dedicated to training apprentices and developing new strategies for market gardening, including year-round production. His pioneering methods are taught worldwide through the Market Gardener Institute, which is present in more than 90 countries.

Jean-Martin is the author of The Winter Market Gardener and The Market Gardener, which have sold over a quarter of a million copies in nine languages. His contributions to organic farming and regenerative agriculture have earned him the Meritorious Service Cross from the Governor General of Canada. He farms and lives in Quebec, Canada.

Pierre Nessmann

Pierre Nessmann was born to a family of Strasbourg market gardeners and holds a degree from the École d’Horticulture de Genève, in Switzerland. He has worked as a landscape gardener and a journalist for over 40 years. He is the assistant editor of the popular French gardening magazines Rustica Pratique and Rustica Weekly, covers gardening and DIY stories for the French television Network TF1, and currently hosts a gardening segment on the show Nous Voilà Bien, on the French radio station RTL. He is the author of several books about vegetable growing, gardening, and landscaping. Pierre lives in Paris, France.

Flore Avram

Flore Avram is a freelance artist and graphic designer specializing in scientific and botanical illustration. She has collaborated extensively with the French language children’s publisher KiloWatt Editions, and with Inserm Magazine, a quarterly journal which explores health and biomedical research. Flore has earned several professional certifications in graphic design and scientific illustration from L’Ecole Estienne, the Municipal Graduate School of the Arts and Printing Industry. She also works as a Médiatrice en botanique at Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil, a unique French natural heritage site and eco-garden. She is based in Paris, France.

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