hey everyone this week i'm picking up some supply for the farm and i'm at dubois dubois renovation
is a really super center for market gardening and and organic vegetable farmers in quebec
it's like a really cool store and they're really partners with us because for the longest time
you know we've been kind of looking for where to get the supply we need to grow and these
guys have been specializing and specializing and just getting the real stuff that we need
for all of the growing part that we do getting the insect nets getting the drip tapes getting
the irrigation right getting you know all the materials harvesting containers packing boxes
rubber bands tools all of that and i'm you know i've built the relationships over the years and
you know i've i've helped influence perhaps some of the things that they have in the store here but
i'm just so happy with the fact that this exists it's 30 minutes away from the farm
we come here often and it's just a cool place that i wanted to share with you
you know the supply that we get at the farm like i was saying there's a lot of things to run a
market garden like the one at fqt or even any market yard there's so many material
and what i've learned through the years is that you finish the season ordering what you need for
the next one because if you wait till the spring sometimes a lot of stuff is back ordered you don't
have it so we're finishing the season by ordering everything that we need and that's what i'm here
to pick up today a big part of a first order so let's take the time to kind of tour around and
see a little bit of the store here there's a few items that i really appreciate and perhaps some
of you guys have never seen some of the things that that are at sell here so one other thing
that i i really like about this place is that there's a physical place where you can see you
can touch you can kind of feel and there's people that know what they're talking about when they're
you know when they're telling us you know get this system or that system they actually
know what they're talking about so we're really lucky to have them and it's a really cool place
pretty nice johnny's came out with a new six row cedar it's actually the first time that i see it
has a few upgrade this is an upgrade really interesting
the workhorse that we use on the farm game changer for us
broad forks wire weeders
flex stein weeder that's a really good one this is something that we use a lot on the farm
if you've checked some of my videos there's a lot of it
this is a tool that's really really cool it's a blind weeder or winger weiner
you know market gardening and successful small scale farming is about tool a lot
and these tools you can't just find at walmart these are specially designed and
mostly small shops and tool manufacturers that make them but they're purposely designed for us
to really be efficient in the field and so to be able to come and have all of them grouped in one
place it's a physical location you can touch them you can feel them you can shop it's like this is
really what i'm doing today i'm kind of shopping and seeing what's new and what's available
my good buddies from teratech in france they do really amazing
small hand tools it's a great company very innovative really cool this is pretty cool these
are finger weeders you mostly see them on tractors now they're behind a double traveling wheel hoe
and so it has a double action it has the blades that can cut and it has the weeders that can
really go really close to the plants so harvest bins like an example of seeing what's available
then you can really make kits like at fqt we use those and these so these are wider
these are for salads and so they're bigger and wider but so you can really fill them
but with salads so they're not too heavy so these are the ones we use for that
otherwise with anything that's kind of rooty or something's heavier
we use these ones they fit great into an 18 inch pathways you can really slide them in they're
really sturdy and they're not too big buying good containers you'll have them for a lifetime so
it's a good investment they're much better than tupper maids and rubber maids and then there's
a there's always the stackable function you can stack them and you can store them so these ones
work well with these ones so you can stack them or you can fold them and also having
different colors sometimes help because you can color code some harvests the monday harvest
can be in red the tuesday harvest can be in blue so there's you know choosing the right
containers is not something you can do lightly something that you want to give some thoughts
this is a system of growing strawberries in gutters
and we tried this for a few years at the farm we would take them put them in the in the cold room
top them leave them in the cold room for the winter and then really early really
early spring would take them out and put them in the greenhouses and get some really early
strawberries and then again you know these systems you come here you see them you're
like this is you're curious you ask people about them just to be able to see things
is really for me it's a big part of my work as a as a tool advisor for different companies it's
somebody that's highly interested in figuring out how to do things to travel around to go to
trade shows to go to stores like these allows me to see you know what's out there to do good work
in the field it's really important not everyone has probably a superstore like this
so i think going to trade shows also are important like in the winter is a good time to go to winter
conferences and and go hear other farmers and growers talk about what they do but also visit
the exhibits and the the tool manufacturers and traders that are there
to see the equipments to see all of that i think it's a really big part of being
having an edge these are so so essential to our farming insect nets
new material here this is a new material also
row covers new design new fabric more sturdy
different system
see interesting we order a lot of the things through here
we also buy from johnny's selected seeds in maine a lot of the tools
work with them closely there's there's there's an ecosystem of suppliers that we use but
clearly here because it's so close to home it's a place that i come often that we rely on a lot
this is really amazing dumb who's been some somebody that i talk to about every week he's
showing me around the warehouse i've never been here really and uh it's amazing just telling me
that they went from 300 orders per week per day to 700 and then the packing station is all organized
for that how many people work here there's about 100 people that work in the warehouse so
it's a big superstore these are all row covers insect nets
for someone that has been you know market guarding pretty much all of my adult life
i've never really seen something like this frankly it's pretty impressive
like it's it's somewhat industrial but it looks pretty efficient i think i'd prefer being outside
in the fields but i'm really happy that these guys exist and whatever they're doing here is
is great for me i get my products and it's amazing like we're talking about small-scale farming
but if there's i don't know a thousand small farms you kind of need big warehouses like this
to get all the material
so this is it for this week i hope you liked this week's episode again with digging deeper what i
want to do is share you know the farming part of it but also all that surrounds it and i think
i visited dubois it's a pretty cool store i like it here i've learned a lot from just coming and
hanging out and talking with the sales rep and the people that are you know experts
at irrigation or expert at you know all different aspects of farming and again if you're interested
in some of these tools check out the master class a lot of them are explained check out
the blog on themarketgarden.com there's a lot of information about how we use these tools in the
market gardening setup and it's worth it and again growers and co-sponsor for this episode
thumbs up check out the community what we're doing with growers is pretty cool
i hope you guys liked it this week i'll see you next time be safe be well j i'm out
you