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In his 30 years as a truck driver, Max Walker experienced many unusual sights but it wasn’t until he retired that he found something he truly considered unique and worthwhile.
Walker and his wife, Carolyn, both of Meeker, discovered an article in Homestead Magazine that discussed organic gardening with raised beds and that told of a class to be held by Leonard “Len” Pense, developer of the soil-free mixture used in the beds. They quickly decided to meet with Pense and attended one of his classes earlier this year in Missouri.
“It’s really something,” Max Walker said.
When the couple returned home from the class, they began their own raised bed gardens and decided to become the only distributors of Pense’s PreMix and Essential Elements — Len’s Way Family of Products — in Oklahoma.
Now, only a few months later, the Walkers’ Rocky Top Organic Vegetables, receives numerous calls each week.
“We’ve had more interest from 300 or 400 miles away than locally,” Max Walker said.
His wife agreed.
“It’s been amazing to me all the states I hear from,” she said. “It’s making the world smaller. We’re building friends all over; it’s amazing.”
Also amazing to the couple is how much food a single 4-foot by 16-foot raised bed garden can produce.
“It’s something, how much the vegetables can produce,” Carolyn Walker said.
The main idea of the raised bed, soil-free garden is to grow healthier vegetables that taste better and produce more food in a smaller area, and to know what is in the ground where the seeds are planted.
“When you plant using traditional gardens, you don’t know what you need or what might be in the soil,” Carolyn Walker said. “This way, you know.”
Rather than using existing soil, raised bed gardens are created with bags of Pense’s PreMix — a soil-less combination of peat moss, rice hulls, certified organic cotton burr compost and a few other ingredients. Then a thin powder, the Essential Elements, is added.
“The powder has 46 trace minerals, mixed with cottonseed, grain and rice,” Carolyn Walker said. “It and watering are all you need after the initial setup of the beds.”
“And Len contracts with farmers a year in advance to make sure no fertilizers or chemicals are used on the crops,” Max Walker added. “That’s how he can certify that his products are truly organic.”
Pense, who is in his 70s, created the gardening mixture and additional nutrients after realizing how difficult it was to grow a garden at his home in the Ozark Mountains.
With Oklahoma’s red clay and wind, it’s a good, alternative gardening option here, too, the Walkers said.
“You can make them as tiny or as elegant as you want,” Carolyn Walker said. “You can put them in any type container, like an old washtub or cattle tank, as long as it hasn’t been painted with lead paint and doesn’t contain treated wood or treated landscape chips.”
The Walkers chose to build a concrete slab for their seven beds and designed them as Pense instructed, using concrete blocks, PVC pipe and printed diagrams.
“You can scrape off the ground and put wire mesh to keep rodents away and cover it with a heavy black material if the concrete is too expensive,” Carolyn Walker explained. “And you can use cattle panels for things that grow up or lay down for support. It’s a real loose mixture and the panels stabilize the plants from the wind.”
The panels also stabilize corn as it grows and becomes top heavy, Max Walker said.
The purpose of having small gardens, no wider than 4-foot each, is to allow the gardener to reach across, rather than step on or between, the plants in the garden.
“It’s a whole different way of gardening,” Carolyn Walker said. “You use every area of space in the beds.”
Max Walker agreed.
“That’s another thing Len stresses,” he said. “You should use every inch of the beds at all times. And since potatoes and tomatoes need to grow in a different spot each year, he shows you how to make a rotating bed. There’s a lot of configurations you can come up with.”
Each 4-foot by 16-foot garden requires about 28 bags of the soil-less mixture and two buckets of Essential Elements the first year, the Walkers said. But overall, without the need to pull weeds or till the land, this method of gardening is the best, they said.
“Gardening is relatively new to us since Max retired,” Carolyn Walker said. “But this is a good way to learn. It never seemed like fun to me, but this is.”
The Walkers expect their first foods to come off in July or August but are excited to watch the plants grow and to share this organic way of gardening with others.
“You never get too old to learn,” Carolyn Walker said. “All you need is to keep open to new ideas and new ways of doing things.”
For more information, call 405-279-4504 or visit www.rockytoporganicvegetables.com.
___
Johnna Ray may be reached at 214-3934.
In his 30 years as a truck driver, Max Walker experienced many unusual sights but it wasn’t until he retired that he found something he truly considered unique and worthwhile.
Walker and his wife, Carolyn, both of Meeker, discovered an article in Homestead Magazine that discussed organic gardening with raised beds and that told of a class to be held by Leonard “Len” Pense, developer of the soil-free mixture used in the beds. They quickly decided to meet with Pense and attended one of his classes earlier this year in Missouri.
“It’s really something,” Max Walker said.
When the couple returned home from the class, they began their own raised bed gardens and decided to become the only distributors of Pense’s PreMix and Essential Elements — Len’s Way Family of Products — in Oklahoma.
Now, only a few months later, the Walkers’ Rocky Top Organic Vegetables, receives numerous calls each week.
“We’ve had more interest from 300 or 400 miles away than locally,” Max Walker said.
His wife agreed.
“It’s been amazing to me all the states I hear from,” she said. “It’s making the world smaller. We’re building friends all over; it’s amazing.”
Also amazing to the couple is how much food a single 4-foot by 16-foot raised bed garden can produce.
“It’s something, how much the vegetables can produce,” Carolyn Walker said.
The main idea of the raised bed, soil-free garden is to grow healthier vegetables that taste better and produce more food in a smaller area, and to know what is in the ground where the seeds are planted.
“When you plant using traditional gardens, you don’t know what you need or what might be in the soil,” Carolyn Walker said. “This way, you know.”
Rather than using existing soil, raised bed gardens are created with bags of Pense’s PreMix — a soil-less combination of peat moss, rice hulls, certified organic cotton burr compost and a few other ingredients. Then a thin powder, the Essential Elements, is added.
“The powder has 46 trace minerals, mixed with cottonseed, grain and rice,” Carolyn Walker said. “It and watering are all you need after the initial setup of the beds.”
“And Len contracts with farmers a year in advance to make sure no fertilizers or chemicals are used on the crops,” Max Walker added. “That’s how he can certify that his products are truly organic.”
Pense, who is in his 70s, created the gardening mixture and additional nutrients after realizing how difficult it was to grow a garden at his home in the Ozark Mountains.
With Oklahoma’s red clay and wind, it’s a good, alternative gardening option here, too, the Walkers said.
“You can make them as tiny or as elegant as you want,” Carolyn Walker said. “You can put them in any type container, like an old washtub or cattle tank, as long as it hasn’t been painted with lead paint and doesn’t contain treated wood or treated landscape chips.”
The Walkers chose to build a concrete slab for their seven beds and designed them as Pense instructed, using concrete blocks, PVC pipe and printed diagrams.
“You can scrape off the ground and put wire mesh to keep rodents away and cover it with a heavy black material if the concrete is too expensive,” Carolyn Walker explained. “And you can use cattle panels for things that grow up or lay down for support. It’s a real loose mixture and the panels stabilize the plants from the wind.”
The panels also stabilize corn as it grows and becomes top heavy, Max Walker said.
The purpose of having small gardens, no wider than 4-foot each, is to allow the gardener to reach across, rather than step on or between, the plants in the garden.
“It’s a whole different way of gardening,” Carolyn Walker said. “You use every area of space in the beds.”
Max Walker agreed.
“That’s another thing Len stresses,” he said. “You should use every inch of the beds at all times. And since potatoes and tomatoes need to grow in a different spot each year, he shows you how to make a rotating bed. There’s a lot of configurations you can come up with.”
Each 4-foot by 16-foot garden requires about 28 bags of the soil-less mixture and two buckets of Essential Elements the first year, the Walkers said. But overall, without the need to pull weeds or till the land, this method of gardening is the best, they said.
“Gardening is relatively new to us since Max retired,” Carolyn Walker said. “But this is a good way to learn. It never seemed like fun to me, but this is.”
The Walkers expect their first foods to come off in July or August but are excited to watch the plants grow and to share this organic way of gardening with others.
“You never get too old to learn,” Carolyn Walker said. “All you need is to keep open to new ideas and new ways of doing things.”
For more information, call 405-279-4504 or visit www.rockytoporganicvegetables.com.
___
Johnna Ray may be reached at 214-3934.
