2023-08-03 15:33:00
A slightly spicy, very tasty pink shallot planted in October in the tunnels and harvested in June that can be caramelized or as a vegetable. A very tasty small round cucumber; strawberry spinach, an unusual vegetable and an old variety that is not very productive, fragile, but so characteristic with its red fruit that looks like a wild strawberry and tastes of beetroot. Dozens of tomatoes that we don’t water in summer and that grow less quickly, which makes them tastier and richer in minerals. “In winter and spring, the ground of the tunnel where we are going to plant the tomatoes is saturated with rainwater; it is the swamp. Once planted, the plants have no more water, even in the middle of a heat wave”, say Christine Adam and her husband Philippe Poncin, the owners of À la Main Verte in Ourt (Libramont) which also produces a unique mesclun whose composition of 20 shoots varies each month of the year with surprising tastes. “We associate the shoots of the moment, including wild herbs and native but forgotten species such as olive grass (santolina) or curry; flowers such as nasturtium, borage, etc.,” the couple further explains.
Stronger grafted tomato plants
The company À La Main Verte, created in 2013, produces and sells fruit, vegetables, aromatic, edible or associative plants, flowers without products, small fruit shrubs and even imported tea, but flavored on site. There is also the non-profit association À La Main Verte launched by Christine Adam in 2017 and which focuses on education, discovery of unusual vegetables, organization of local markets and member of the solidarity network.
At La Main Verte, we do permaculture: we don’t dig, we only use recycled water, we mulch the soil and we let the plants organize themselves.
While À La Main verte sows its own vegetables and grows them in pots, it also buys grafted eggplant, cucumber, pepper and tomato plants that are barely 3 cm tall. “It’s grafted on old and wild varieties that are more resistant and produce more. Year following year, customers book them,” the couple said.
Rejected for 0.4%
The company wants to expand to a building of 12 mx 30 m on the site: conference room, sales area, office, kitchen for the caterer. She wants to develop in the meadow, a permaculture nursery with a bioclimatic greenhouse, water restriction, etc. “All the authorizations are there. We responded to a call for projects. We needed 60% of the criteria required to receive the subsidy and we received 59.6% for the entire project, without any explanation. Impossible to do this project as it is (€850,000) without subsidy. Otherwise, the plans have to be drastically revised. We might help the other producers who have to go to France or Flanders to buy their plants, whereas with this infrastructure, we might provide them with plants adapted to our soil and climate”, regrets the couple.
You can order by email and pick up the packages in Ourt: 0477 68 00 12.
1691108684
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