Essential tools for successful vegetable growers

Often overlooked by both home and market gardeners, the right farm and garden tools are essential for cultivating success. Vegetable Garden Tools: A Grower's Guide will help you select the appropriate equipment for your unique situation, drawing on "The Market Gardener Method." This method, developed by Jean-Martin Fortier, is a proven formula for successful, small-scale, high-yield microfarming.

This highly accessible, succinct, and beautifully illustrated full-color handbook features:

• Recommendations for garden tools and implements for every stage of cultivation—from soil preparation and sowing to planting, crop maintenance, and harvesting.
• A focus on "low-tech" hand tools that are inexpensive, sustainable, and allow for working the soil while respecting biodiversity. These tools increase productivity and efficiency, and improve ergonomics.
• Detailed information on the function, benefits, and operation of each piece of equipment, accompanied by over 100 explanatory drawings.
• Specific advice and tips to get the most out of your garden tools and farm equipment, whether you are using them in a family garden or on a diversified market farm.

Vegetable Garden Tools: A Grower's Guide is a keystone title in the Grower's Guides from the Market Gardener series. This curated collection of practical handbooks is designed to provide everyone from novice gardeners to seasoned horticulturalists and farmers with the information they need to grow better using Jean-Martin Fortier's principles of biointensive, regenerative agriculture at a human scale.

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

Pierre Nessmann has worked as a journalist and landscape gardener for over 40 years. He is assistant editor for the two popular French gardening magazines Rustica Pratique and Rustica Weekly, and covers gardening and DIY stories for French national television and radio. He is the author of several books about vegetables, gardening and landscaping. He lives in Paris, France.

Pierre Nessmann's profile page

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. She is based in Paris, France.

Flore Avram's profile page

Laurie Bennett's profile page

Jean-Martin Fortier's tomato guide is full of tips that will save new growers years of wasted effort. Mastering tomatoes—with this book—is a great place to start your farming career.
—Ben Hartman, author, The Lean Farm and The Lean Micro Farm

The contents of this book belie its small size; the book is packed with solid information, which, along with the layout and illustrations, make for an engaging and very pleasant read. This Grower's Guide has something for everyone, from seasoned gardeners and small farmers to newbies. Read it. Enjoy it. Learn from it.
— Lee Reich, PhD, scientist, farmdener (farmer/gardener hybrid), and author, Growing Figs in Cold Climates

Everything you need to know to grow amazing tomatoes.
— David R. Montgomery, co-author, What Your Food Ate and The Hidden Half of Nature

I was thrilled with this book. Tomatoes are so varied and there's much folklore about them. I love the illustrations and pored over them. The techniques and strategies are useful and appropriate. The information is well organised and the language is clear. It is such a useful addition to home gardeners and commercial growers.
—Rowe Morrow, Blue Mountains Permaculture Institute, author, Earth Restorer's Guide to Permaculture

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 of sweet, juicy tomatoes.
—Darrell E. Frey, author, Bioshelter Market Garden, and co-author, The Food Forest Handbook

It's always fun and informative to read a seasoned grower's tips and tricks for any crop, and tomatoes are an important crop for market growers, with lots of steps to getting from seed to market. I know Jean-Martin has spent a lot of time working with tomato production, so it's great to see his methods laid down in this little guide book.
—Josh Volk, Slow Hand Farm, author, Compact Farms and Build Your Own Farm Tools

Praise for the Grower's Guides from the Market Gardener series

Jean-Martin Fortier has done it again! Incredibly beautiful, this series of pragmatic and professional instructional manuals makes it easy for anyone to start market gardening at a professional and regenerative level with a tailored focus on each aspect.
—Matt Powers, author, Regenerative Soil and Regenerative Soil Microscopy

Applying a market gardening mindset to your home garden will improve your yields and greatly reduce the amount of work involved. To do this, look no further than this series from Jean-Martin Fortier who is a pioneer in regenerative, biointensive, and organic market gardening.
—Rob and Michelle Avis, Verge Permaculture / 5th World, co-authors, Building Your Permaculture Property

The Winter Market Gardener, Jean-Martin Fortier and Catherine Sylvestre, 9780865719873, New Society Publishers, $39.99, 3000

Plant Science for Gardeners, Robert Pavlis,9780865719736, New Society Publishers, 2022-06-07, 22.99, 3000

Compost Science for Gardeners, Robert Pavlis,9780865719767 , New Society Publishers, 2023-01-24, 3500

Microbe Science for Gardeners, Robert Pavlis, 9780865719774, New Society Publishers, 2023-09-12

Old Farmer's Almanac Container Gardener's Handbook, Old Farmer's Almanac, 9781571989673, Old Farmer's Almanac, 2024/04/02, $24.47, no sales