Interview With The Market Gardener

Another fantastic interview by Curtis Stone, this time he’s with Jean-Martin Fortier the author of The Market Gardener. Its basically a discussion about his lifestyle growing food for a living and the ups and downs of running of an intensive organic and profitable small scale farming enterprise. His book comes very highly rated by many people in the Horticulture/Urban Farming world, I’m going to be buying it my self as soon as the funds become available. I loved this interview, very enlightening.

Read the first chapter (20 pages) of the book here: http://www.themarketgardener.com/flipbook/

LINK: http://www.themarketgardener.com/
BOOK: http://www.bookdepository.com/Market-Gardener-Jean-Martin-Fortier/9780865717657

Good Old Organic Gardening Advice

This is a fabulous short video I’ve just come across from a 90’s TV series called “Garden Naturally” by Barbra Damrosch and Eliot Coleman.

This is all really sound advice and its as relevant and accurate today as it was back then. To me it seems a little ahead of it’s time in a sense but then I guess these “gardening” techniques tend not to change a great deal and nor should they really. Excellent clip showing what organic gardening growing is all about, keeping it simple and always remembering to “feed the soil and the soil will feed the plants”.

Subjects covered: Soil Fungi, Rock Soil Amendments, Soil Aeration, Organic Matter, Nitrogen Fixation, Compost Making, Scything Weeds, Planting Soft Fruit, Pruning, Mulching Weeds, Soil Fertility & PH, Planting Techniques etc

More to come from Eliot Coleman, in the next few posts to the blog…

The Edible Garden Series

The Edible Garden – BBC TV Series (2010)

Gardener, presenter and writer Alys Fowler attempts to avoid shop bought fruit/vegetables and live off her own home grown produce. Alys focus on different foods and show how anyone can grow, cook and eat from their own garden even if they live in a urban environment. It’s no easy task for her because she doesn’t want to turn her garden into an allotment  so she’s growing her fruit and veg among flowers. Peas and beans are prolific vegetables but they also look beautiful in the borders too. Alys also goes and makes delicious broad bean falafels and pea shoot cocktails and forages for willow to make plant supports. She has two new additions to the family, her chickens!

As with all of these types of programs their is an element of it being unrealistic and just for TV but it’s still worth watching for those that enjoy this type of thing. I’m sure as with everything you’ll learn a thing or two along the way.

Britain Must Grow More Sustainable Food

Proposals for national food strategy calls for UK farming ‘revolution’ in response to climate change and food security (2010)

Britain must grow more food, while using less water and reducing emission of greenhouse gases, to respond to the challenge of climate change and growing world populations, the environment secretary, Hilary Benn, said yesterday.

“Food security is as important to this country’s future wellbeing, and the world’s, as energy security. We need to produce more food. We need to do it sustainably. And we need to make sure what we eat safeguards our health,” he said.

Launching the government’s food strategy for the next 20 years with a speech to the Oxford Farming Conference, he proposed a consumer-led, technological revolution to transform UK farming.

“We know that the consequences of the way we produce and consume our food are unsustainable to our planet and to ourselves,” he said. “We know we are at one of those moments in our history where the future of our economy, our environment, and our society will be shaped by the choices we make now.”

He said consumers, rather than retailers, should lead by buying “greener” food, wasting less and growing more of their own: “People power can help bring about a revolution in the way food is produced and sold.”

Food businesses, supermarkets and manufacturers would follow consumer demand for food that was local, healthy and had a smaller environmental footprint – just as consumers had pushed the rapid expansion of Fairtrade products and free range eggs in the last decade, Benn said.

Grow Your Own Food Summit

This is a collection of interviews for anyone interested in growing their own food or living a more sustainable existence.Thirty-four presentations cover everything from community building to creating a food forest to beginning your very first garden, saving non-GMO seeds, permaculture and much more.

So like you I’ve also missed the first couple of days but it runs until the 14th, the snag is the lectures are only available for 24 hours after they post them (10am US Eastern Daylight Time) but it’s worth signing up now for the remainder of the videos and talks. I really enjoyed the one I just listed to the talk with Vandan Shiva about, among other things, the vital importance of seed saving as well as the abundance that comes from say 1 tomato gives you enough seeds to grow potentially hundreds more tomatoes.

I think you’ll like these, so get them while they you can for free.

SIGN-UP LINK: http://www.growfoodsummit.com

Pesticides Found On “Bee-Friendly” Plants Sold At Garden Centers

“Here’s just another reason to start your plants from seeds and cuttings and bring them on yourself rather than buy from Garden Centers and Supermarkets. You could always buy them from a local guy you know and trust and keep the money in the community. Also buying organic certified plants may reduce your chances of pesticide exposure for you and the wildlife.”

Gardeners Beware (2014): Bee-toxic pesticides found in “bee-friendly plants sold at garden centers across the U.S. and Canada

Many “bee-friendly” home garden plants sold at Home Depot, Lowe’s and Walmart have been pre-treated with pesticides shown to harm and kill bees, according to a study released today by Friends of the Earth and allies.

The study, Gardeners Beware 2014, shows that 36 out of 71 (51 percent) of garden plant samples purchased at top garden retailers in 18 cities in the United States and Canada contain neonicotinoid (neonic) pesticides — a key contributor to recent bee declines. Some of the flowers contained neonic levels high enough to kill bees outright assuming comparable concentrations are present in the flowers’ pollen and nectar. Further, 40 percent of the positive samples contained two or more neonics.

The study is a larger follow up to a first-of-its-kind pilot study released by Friends of the Earth last August. The new study expanded the number of samples and number of locations where plants were purchased, and also assessed the distribution of neonic pesticides between flowers and the rest of the plant.

“The high percentage of contaminated plants and their neonicotinoid concentrations suggest that this problem continues to be widespread,” said Lisa Archer, director of the Food & Technology program at Friends of the Earth-U.S. “Most gardeners have no idea that their gardens may be a source of harm to bees. We’re calling on retailers to get neonicotinoid pesticides out of their plants and off their shelves as soon as possible. Until then, gardeners should buy organic plants to ensure the safety of bees.”

Tomatoes Seed Sales Rocket 40% With Heritage/Heirloom Tomatoes The Most Wanted

Tomato seed sales rocket 40% with First World War varieties the flavour of the month – but gardeners fear EU clampdown

•     Foodies and tomato lovers tiring of buying mass-produced supermarket varieties
•     Most popular tomato seeds include varieties introduced before WWI, like ‘Harbinger’

Sales of ‘heirloom’ British tomato seeds are soaring as foodies and tomato lovers tire of buying mass-produced supermarket varieties and turn to home-growing.

Tomato seed sales were up 40 per cent in the 2013 season according to figures from The Organic Gardening Catalogue, which has specialised in supplying seeds – some originating from before World War One – to organic gardeners for 50 years.

Some of the most popular tomato varieties driving the demand include the ‘Harbinger’ (introduced in 1910), ‘Golden Sunrise’ (1896) and ‘Ailsa Craig’ (1925) in an ever-expanding range of more than fifty colours, shapes and sizes.

The demand for more flavoursome fruit and vegetables has expanded alongside British households’ growing fussiness over their groceries and the origin of produce.

But niche tomato varieties stocked by retailers like Waitrose and M&S are often expensive and sometimes disappointing in flavour.

Michael Hedges, managing director of Surrey-based The Organic Gardening Catalogue, said: ‘Tomatoes remain the most widely-grown crop for home growers in the UK, and we’re seeing an increase in interest in the old varieties, ideally suited to home garden growing.

‘They typically have thinner skins, rich flavour and a long harvest and ripening period. It would be hard to find anything like these in the supermarket.