This image of the Garden of Abundance at La Chatonnière in France was a big initial inspiration. The idea of creating a biodiverse market garden with a variety of vegetables and complementary flowers where people could walk around through pathways was very appealing. You can get a sense of the scale of the garden by locating the person walking on the path near the bottom right of the picture - hint: they're slightly hidden by the trees. (photo credit above: La Chatonnière)
The east side of the property provides a large pasture area with a gentle roll and we decided to situate the market garden area there. First step was plotting things out in a 25 ft x 25 ft grid. An outline of a leaf was created on the grid and the pattern was cut out of the grass using the ride-on mower. The leaf felt a bit narrow, however, plus, a person would need to be able to stand well back and above it to get any sense of the leaf design.
At the same time we’d been reading Jean-Martin Fortier’s, “The Market Gardener” where he recommends standardized garden plots based on a 48 inch wide row (30 inches for planting + 18 inches for working) and a consistent length (e.g. 25 ft, 50 ft, 100 ft, etc). The 48 inch width is critical as the raised-bed, low tillage farming practice which he advocates for employs a two-wheel tractor plus accompanying implements, which are all made to fit the 30 inch beds perfectly. Long, polyurethane tarps are also laid down on the beds post harvest to aid in the quick breakdown of the remainder of the plants into green waste while killing any weeds. It helps that these tarps are all the exact same size and can be used on any harvested row. The net result is more efficient farming using repeatable processes. (photo credit above: Les Jardins de la Grelinette)
We landed on creating 4 plots, each measuring 40 ft x 75 ft. The plan is to bring a new plot online each year starting in 2022. For more details on this visit “Our Vision”. We always add the caveat that “we will get to where we get to”. We want to enjoy the journey first and foremost. We’ll see how the first plot goes and go from there. In the image below you'll see the four market garden plots to the east side of the property. This represents the vision for 2026.
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