“If you don’t grow it, you don’t know what goes on your table.” Growing it yourself is exactly what Len Pense, of Pensaroda Farm, teaches the horticulture knowledge seekers who brave the steep, rocky, bumpy road to his hilltop garden haven.
Len, an engineer, vegetable cultivator, teacher of all things food sustainable (including canning classes) and Korean War veteran, has always had a mindset for gardening. He grew up in the Dust Bowl era in Oklahoma and said that, “if we didn’t grow it, we didn’t have it.” Today, Len owns and operates Pensaroda Farm and teaches raised bed gardening methods developed from years of cultivation and experimentation. Len’s first experience with raised bed gardening was growing a vegetable garden in a sandbox full of compost. After a successful harvest, he knew he needed to keep going – so he built beds from concrete blocks, constructed heavy duty tomato towers and created a perfect growing medium of peat moss, rice hulls, cotton burr compost and essential elements with a pH of 7. And then he planted. Len’s garden exploded and for the past nine years he has shared his knowledge with the world. Want to know how to sustainably grow enough food to feed your family and then some? Read on for some of Len’s organic know-how.
The Garden Bed
The raised beds in the Pensaroda garden measure 4×16 feet and are built from concrete blocks. Each bed is two to three blocks high. A good way to construct the garden beds is to lay hardware netting over the area where you want the bed, and then lay a piece of landscape mat over the netting. Once the blocks are laid, the hardware netting will repel moles from tunneling up into the garden box and the landscape mat will prevent weed growth. After the box is built, the next step is to fill it with soil or the growing medium of your choice. Compost is an excellent thing to add to a garden bed – it improves the soil quality, and it helps provide nutrients. Most organic matter can be composted – dead leaves, for example, provide up to 80 percent of the nutrients growing veggies need. Some things NOT to compost include dead animals, meat scraps and any vegetation from the nightshade family.
The Planting
Wondering what to plant in your garden beds? “Plant what you eat,” Len said. Knowing what your tastes are can save you an expensive seed buying spree – it can be hard to resist brightly colored seed packets that grow vegetables with exotic names. Len advises people to choose their seeds wisely (and preferably heirloom), but experimenting is good too. Trying one or two new varieties each year can help you expand your taste horizons. Once you’ve planted, Len advised to “keep the beds full all the time.” Once you’ve harvested the crop from one plant, pull it out and sow more seed. This keeps your garden going at a high production rate. It is perfectly alright for your veggies to intermingle – many plants actually enjoy company and grow well together. Once your garden is up and running, don’t forget to fertilize.
Pest Control
You aren’t the only one who will enjoy the fruits of your garden labor – insects and other pests will want a share too. Using organic pest control methods is better for the health of the plants, the environment and yourself. Len recommended using Diatomaceous Earth (DE, finely ground seashells from a millennia or two ago) can be applied to the undersides of pest infected leaves – insects like slugs will slither over the DE, cut themselves on the microscopic sharp edges and die. Planting dill around tomatoes will often deter tomato hornworms – the worms are so attracted to the feathery dill that they eat it instead and leave the tomatoes alone. Blood meal can be sprinkled around the bases of plants to repel furry veggie thieves like rabbits and squirrels – they hate the smell and will move on to someone else’s garden.
Reaping More Than The Harvest
No matter how involved you are with gardening, there is cost involved. “It’s an investment,” said Len. “But you make your money back, plus a lot.” Gardening is one of the few investments that will give you a 200 percent return within the first year. Perhaps the most important thing about organic gardening, though, is the peace of mind in knowing that you are providing for your family in a way that is healthy for Mother Earth too – so knowing what goes on your table is a win-win for everybody.
