Winter Market Gardener

Profitable winter market gardening - the complete practical guide to growing vegetables year-round in northern climates for local markets

Many small farms shut down during the dark winter months. Yet with the right techniques, equipment, and cultivars, year-round growing can produce the highest quality and tastiest fresh local vegetables, all while banking a profit.

Building on years of research, experimentation, and collaboration, The Winter Market Gardener is a beautifully illustrated practical guide to winter vegetable production for small farmers growing in northern climates. Coverage includes:

• Unique aspects of year-round vegetable production, including superior flavor and the promotion of seasonality in eating
• Dozens of detailed vegetable profiles featuring recommended cultivars and crop-specific tips and techniques for bountiful winter harvests
• Details for calculating optimal seeding dates, crop spacing, care, pest management, weed control, and harvesting
• Selecting shelters for your crops and climate, including row covers, low tunnels, caterpillar tunnels, and high tunnels
• The costs and benefits of heated versus unheated greenhouses
• Tool selection and use for efficiency
• Winter storage crops and successful autumn growing
• Crop planning details for winter-season production.

Whether you are an experienced farmer or market grower, enthusiastic amateur, or committed consumer, The Winter Market Gardener will excite, inspire, and empower you to embrace the seasons and work with nature to produce and enjoy superior-quality local vegetables all year.

Jean-Martin Fortier is a farmer, author, educator, and advocate for regenerative, human-scale, profitable agriculture. For over 20 years he and his wife Maude-Helene Desroches have operated les Jardins de la Grelinette, a successful 2-acre microfarm. His bestselling book The Market Gardener, which has sold a quarter million copies in nine languages, describes the biointensive principles used at his micro-farm. In 2015, he established a research farm, la Ferme des Quatre-Temps, where he trains apprentices and develops new strategies for market gardening, including year-round production. His methods of production are taught to a worldwide audience through the Market Gardener Masterclass, an online course of the Market Gardener Institute, which is tailored to small-scale food growers. He is the founder of Growers & Co., a tool and apparel company which celebrates sustainable, local, and equitable food producers. Jean-Martin farms and lives in Quebec, Canada.

Catherine Sylvestre is the director of vegetable production at la Ferme des Quatre-Temps, a collaborative farm project inspired by the principles of ecological polyculture and regenerative agriculture. Leader of the market garden team, she trains program participants and develops and implements best practices for cold season growing, specializing in crop protection and greenhouse production for northern climates. She is also technical advisor at the Market Gardener Institute, where she studies and teaches organic agriculture. In addition to her field experience, Catherine has a BSc in Ecological Agriculture and Professional Agrology and a Master's degree in Political Science. Her academic focus has been the rich and complex relationship between human beings and nature, which meets in agriculture. Through her research, writing, and training, Catherine hopes to provide other farmers and market gardeners with the tools and knowledge to produce their own successful winter harvests. She lives in Quebec, Canada.