Nicolas Bernard

Nicolas wants to make the world smile from the sunny beaches of Marseille.

Biography

Planting vegetable gardens means working for future generations, and Nicolas finds that peachy keen!

His love story with the orchard began during a year at Erasmus in Scotland.

There, he discovered a farmers’ crisis similar to the one experienced by farmers in France.

Far from clueless, Nicolas asked himself lots of questions about the production of the food we consume.

The peat all around him made him want to become closer to the earth, so he became interested in permaculture.

According to him, the end is nearing due to global warming, so we have to act, and this way of producing food gets him closer to his goal of building a more livable future for all.

Today, Nicolas works under the Marseille sun.
When he’s not at the beach or growing vegetables on the urban farm he set up, his greatest joy is spreading the love of gardening in schools. Children are wonderfully optimistic — and so spontaneous that they once chanted his name to motivate him in the garden in the pouring rain.

In business, he doesn’t expect employees to crowd around him on a rainy day too, but he will make sure that we all cultivate an important value in the garden: teamwork.

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Tip From The Grower

Take care of your soil’s health

My little gardening tip is to always take care of your soil’s health by protecting it, especially through mulching. I love watching the evolution of dry and compact soil into something alive, fertile, and pleasant to the smell and to the touch, all thanks to a bit of organic matter that we let decompose on top.

I am also always fascinated, especially in the winter when nature is dormant, by the ability of my tomato, pepper, and eggplant plants to emerge again in the spring thanks to the nice thick layer of RCW (ramial chipped wood) that will have protected them from the frost and then nourished them during the spring. Viva Massilia!

And if you want to debate, ask me about pruning tomato suckers — I find that subject fascinating! I cut them, of course, but I always soak them in water or a moist potting soil and let them take root again, so that I can grow new plants all summer, spread them around, and savour my tomatoes until the end of December! Sorry Parisians!

By Nicolas Bernard, grower in Marseille.