58: 5 Costly Mistakes New Market Gardeners Make (And How to Avoid Them)

JM Fortier (0:00)

The first few years of starting a farm is so much work. And I do think that that's one reason why not that many people make it over five years, is because the first three years are very hard. There's other things in life than the farm. And if you have your head so much into it that you don't see anything else, you're missing out. You're missing out on just kind of enjoying summer to eat a ripened fruit on a tree or to be by the riverbed or to be in the forest or to be with your friends, to go to a concert, to play music, to do something else. When you have an eight to five or seven to five thirty or whatever that time slot is, it forces you to prioritize better and to get more done in less time because you have a stop time on the farm.

Welcome to The Market Gardener Podcast, where we believe that small scale farming is changing the world. Join us for insightful conversations with people who are working to build a better future, a future with less mass production and more production by the masses. The revolution is in the field. Let's get digging.

This episode is brought to you by Dubois Aggrovation, my go-to store for all my market gardening needs. Whether it's irrigation systems, tool, harvest supplies, insect nets, Dubois has you covered, friends. I've been working with Dubois ever since I met Jeanette, the owner, probably 25 years ago. She's been around market gardeners her whole life, and she was the one that helped me out when I started my book, The Market Gardener, many, many years ago. Recently, they've been my partners in setting up the irrigation systems here at The Old Mill, but also at FQT Farm, at La Grelinette and all my other projects. I've always done my irrigation with Dubois. Listeners of the podcast enjoy a 10% discount on select products by choosing the promo code MasterClass-Jean-Martin-Fortier.

Go check out Dubois at duboisag.com.

Thank you, Dubois, for everything you do for the Market Gardener community. You guys rock. All right, and we're on A. Thank you, everyone, to listen. It's such a pleasure to have this opportunity to share with you all. I'm so excited. Again, solo episode today without Chris.

Last time I did a solo episode, I talked about how many comments, positive comments we get about Chris' work, how people love him. He's just like a unique person, and the more you get to know him, the better it gets. That's really fun, and we have lots of great episodes coming up, lots of amazing guests that are lined up in the next six months. You'll see more of Chris, but today we're doing another solo episode, it's me, and we are recording this start of August. I don't know when that's going to be aired, but before I go on to my topic, I just wanted to touch base, because this is a special moment in the season where a lot of people are tired and burned out, and I want to salute all the growers out there that are probably, well, this will be aired later on, but that have passed on to that part of the season. This, in my experience, in all my 20 years of farming, August is really where some despair and discouragement kicks in. Long season, you're going to market, you're doing your deliveries, you're six days a week doing the thing, and it's just like, it's repetitive work, it's hard work every day, every week.

It's a part of the year where some staff are kind of feeling the grind of a long season and they're not as enthusiastic as before, and it kind of falls on the shoulder of the grower to have the spirit, to elevate the spirit of a team when it's not always easy. So it's hard work.

I had two people reach out to me in the last two weeks, you know, growers that have been doing it for a long time, like season growers, groomed, they're good at what they're doing, and they reached out to me because they were struggling. And I took two calls, really talked, and I think that's a really important thing. When this is happening and you're out of your groove and you have the pressure to be the leader, you have the pressure, it's your farm, you're delivering not just the produce, but you're also delivering, again, the high spirit and the enthusiasm, and you need to be upbeat, and it's not always easy, and you can't really allow the team to see that you're perhaps a little worn out. You can't do that. This is like, you need to fake it a little bit comes August. And I really appreciated these calls, very personal calls, and I won't go in details with about what was talked about, but I think just reaching out, if that was your situation, if you're going through that now when this is aired, or next time around when that happens, and it does happen, it happened to me. I had at least two seasons that I remember that were super hard for me.