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
• Dozens of detailed vegetable profiles
• Start-to-finish winter crop planning
• Selecting shelters, from row covers to high tunnels
• Tool selection and use for efficiency
• Winter storage crops and successful autumn growing.

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 and his wife Maude-Helene Desroches are the founders of Les Jardins de la Grelinette, an internationally recognized micro-farm famous for its high productivity-profitability using low-tech, high-yield methods of production. A leading practitioner of biologically intensive cropping systems, Jean-Martin has more than a decade's worth of experience in mixed organic farming. He has written articles about his work for popular magazines such as Canadian Organic Grower, La Terre de Chez Nous and Growing for Market. He also contributes occasionally as a tool and equipment advisor for companies such as Johnny's Selected Seeds and Dubois Agrinovation. The original French language version of this book, Le Jardinier-Maraicher, released in Fall 2012, has sold more than 15,000 copies.

Jean-Martin Fortier's profile page

Catherine Sylvestre is a professional agronomist and director of vegetable production and leader of the market garden team at la Ferme des Quatre-Temps. She develops, implements, and teaches best practices for cold season growing, specializing in crop protection and greenhouse production for northern climates. She lives in Quebec, Canada.

Catherine Sylvestre's profile page

Laurie Bennett's profile page

"The essential guide for winter market gardening for the new generation of growers is here!!! "
–Zach Loeks, edible ecosystem designer, author, The Two-wheel Tractor Handbook and The Permaculture Market Garden

"The core challenge of growers in the north is learning how to feed our communities with fresh, local, real food in the winter. With great research and detailed charts, this book shows exactly how to do just that. I think every grower should buy it, read it, and incorporate its ideas. An indispensable book."
–Ben Hartman, author, The Lean Micro Farm

"In this book, you will find all manner of useful planning considerations and practical tips and evaluations of structures, tools, diseases and pests, crop notes, and optimal storage conditions to help you extend your seasons and production for as long as possible through the winter months … A lovely extension to Jean-Martin’s previous handbook, and a great resource for those looking to up their winter growing practices."
–Richard Perkins, author, Regenerative Agriculture

"…this book was written by two people who have devoted their lives to helping feed communities better. Winter is no longer off-limits, it’s open to all of us."
–Michael Kilpatrick, educator, Growing Farmers, farmer, The Farm on Central

"Drawing on the Parisienne market garden tradition and Eliot Coleman’s seminal works, The Winter Market Gardener presents years of new research, experimentation, and practice. It covers every aspect of growing vegetables for market year round in a cold climate to build community resilience and reduce imports. It's comprehensive, well laid out, full of information, and engaging."
–Maddy Harland, editor, co-founder, Permaculture Magazine

"Jean-Martin’s passion for organic farming is contagious. He is always innovating, experimenting, and sharing his findings with others and The Winter Market Gardener is no exception. This book is practical, thorough, well-researched, and an invaluable resource for cold-climate growers."
–Erin Benzakein, Floret