Farm Glance: Ferme aux pleines saveurs

No two ways about it, Martin Turcot and Chantale Vaillancourt are in the business of producing food. After visiting mostly farms of one to five acres, this 20-acre farm just outside the village of Saint-André-Avellin was, for us, a thing to behold.

Martin and Chantale both work full-time on the farm, producing a huge variety of fruits and vegetables.

Martin Turcot and Chantale Vaillancourt with their youngest Natael (missing from the photo is Alexia and les petits chats)

They market their products using several different avenues:
–> they run a 250-300 member CSA;
–> they run an on-farm kiosk;
–> they sell to a local daycare;
–> they sell to local health-food stores; and
–> they sell to consumers through le Marché de solidarité régionale (Regional Solidarity Market), an avenue increasingly found in Québec which allows consumers to order local products online (more on this to come).

Martin and Chantale both dove into farming with the idea of going big. The reality of this has meant overseeing many employees, including a chef who is in charge of all value-added products, such as jams, juices, cakes, chutneys, pickles, etc. They believe the perception of a farmer as a jack-of-all-trades saddled with the responsibility of producing food, fixing machinery, construction projects, as well as marketing and delivering food, is a myth, and they pride themselves in having created a business that strengthens the local economy by providing jobs for people in their community.

While searching for farm innovations, we found that we lacked a discerning eye for such a scale. Because of this, we feel regretful that we can’t showcase the best of what the farm has to offer. But here is what we did find interesting:

As an alternative to our friend David's solution to breaks in irrigation tape (see Lost Creek Farm post), Ferme aux pleines saveurs uses this handy gadget to splice together two ends; each end screws on and holds really tight. These couplers cost about $0.75 each, but they can be reused many times over. They can be found at most irrigation supply stores.

Our experience has been to use single row covers that are 3 or 4 feet wide. At Ferme aux pleines saveurs, they use row covers that are about 40 feet wide and cover many beds. At this farm's scale, this size of row cover is vital, and once the cumbersome job of laying them down is over, they seem to be pretty manageable.

The challenge of holding down row covers is a universal one. At Ferme aux pleines saveurs, their solution is an army of sandbags with a long handle that makes them easy to move. Placed every 20 feet or so, they hold down the fort against prevailing winds.