Definition

1. Noun:
   • The commercial cultivation of vegetables, fruits, or flowers for sale, typically on a relatively small scale and often directly to consumers or local markets.

Usage

• Noun:
  • Market gardening is a form of intensive agriculture focused on high-value crops.
  • It often involves direct marketing strategies, such as selling at farmers' markets or through community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs.
  • This practice contrasts with large-scale, single-crop (monoculture) farming.

Examples

• Noun:
  • After retiring, they took up market gardening and now sell organic tomatoes and herbs at the weekend market.
  • The region is known for its market gardening, supplying fresh lettuce and strawberries to the city.
  • Successful market gardening requires knowledge of crop rotation and soil management.

Advanced Usage

• "to be engaged in market gardening": to be involved in the business of growing produce for sale.
  • The family has been engaged in market gardening for three generations.
• The term can imply a business model or a specific sector of agriculture, not just the physical act of growing.

Variants and Related Words

• Market gardener (n): a person who owns or works on a market garden.
  • The market gardener arrives at the stall before dawn to set up.
• Market garden (n): the piece of land used for market gardening.
  • Their ten-acre market garden is incredibly productive.

Synonyms

• Truck farming: (North American term) often used synonymously, though it can sometimes emphasize larger-scale production of vegetables for distant markets.
• Horticulture: the broader science and art of growing plants (fruits, vegetables, flowers, ornamentals), which includes market gardening as a commercial subset.
• Small-scale farming: a more general term that can include market gardening.

Related Phrases

• "to run a market garden": to manage a business involved in market gardening.
  • They decided to run a market garden after studying sustainable agriculture.

Noun

1. the growing of vegetables or flowers for market