From 1850 to 1900, Paris produced an exceptional amount of food using fine-tuned growing techniques developed over generations of Parisian Mara'chiers. These urban farmers intensively cultivated one-to-two-acre lots.
They had to: In this 50-year period, Paris grew from 1.2 million to more than two million residents. As the population ballooned, six percent of the city area— more than 1,500 acres—provided the people with vegetables.
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Horse manure is an innocuous mix of hay and grass fiber, almost sweet-smelling. The Parisian Mara'chiers (market gardeners) used horse manure to fertilize and supply their city with fresh produce year-round.
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During his time in Paris, hot-beds were in constant use for the production of early crops. Essentially, a thick layer of moistened, well-compacted manure is buried under about a foot of soil. Decomposition creates heat and warms the soil above.
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By using a hotbed in combination with cold frames, the Mara'chiers provided a friendly growing environment to encourage early production. This allowed them to harvest salad crops in the depths of winter and melons and cucumber in early June.
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Rich, manure-fed soil combined with intercropping enabled the Mara'chiers to achieve four to eight harvests per bed per year. Between 16 and 30 tonnes of manure were used per acre annually. The diversion of manure from stables and streets to the city’s gardens led to a net increase in soil fertility, even with intensive production.
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In contrast, today’s industrial agriculture system depletes our soil 10 to 40 times faster than the natural rate of soil formation. As the Mara'chiers knew, food for the masses does not need to equate to degraded soil.
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They worked their plots by foot on paths of a slight 9 to 12 inches. Men transformed into human wheelbarrows by donning hand-woven basket backpacks with extensions above the head. They loaded the baskets with manure, walked to the destination, bowed forward, and—perhaps with a little shakeout fell the essential ingredient of their success.
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Whether growing for yourself or for the market, it helps to be brave and try new things to get the most out of your growing space. With today’s expanding knowledge and our technology, combined with the increasing demand for local, fresh, organic food, our cities need to step up their growing game.
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Over time we have forgotten this fact. We are no longer limited by square footage: vertical growers think in cubic dimensions. Space is not the problem; innovation is our limitation. Studying the Parisian Mara'chiers reminds us that the practice of growing food intensively year-round in a similar climate has been done before—often better then we are doing today. Urban farming has become an international movement. So, where is the closest horse stable?
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