Doomsday garden has become a thriving business

Leonard Pense never planned to grow his garden into a business…
Ten years ago, the former engineer and military consultant bought 21 secluded acres on top of a hill south of Strafford –“high ground with only one way in and out,” he says.

It was a place his extended family could retreat to if the country’s economy collapsed, big trucks stopped delivering food to cities or the power grid went dark.

“This was built solely as a survival garden for my family,” said Pense, surveying rows of raised-bed growing areas filled with raspberries, potatoes, beans, okra, cauliflower, tomatoes and other edibles.
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“Having worked as a consultant for the government, I came to the conclusion this country is not in the best of shape. When I started this, I did not intend for anyone to know where I was or what I was doing out here.”

His survivalist retreat, however, didn’t remain a secret.
Today, Pense’s hilltop doomsday garden has become a thriving business known as Pensaroda Farm.

He sells a special compost blend he created himself that almost eliminates weeds, and a fertilizer additive he designed that goes far beyond the basic nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium mix most gardeners are familiar with.

Pense also teaches people how to grow bountiful gardens weedlessly and preserve what they grow so they have the knowledge to survive a societal calamity.

Sales of his compost product and fertilizer blend topped $500,000 last year, he said, with shipments both locally and to gardeners across the country.

He now has one employee to help manage the operation.

His engineering background gave him the insight he needed to develop the growing medium — a blend of cotton boll compost, peat moss and rice hulls.

“It’s so loose that you can go to your raised-bed potato patch and literally reach down and feel the potato and pull it out,” Pense said, hand-harvesting a ripe spud as proof.

“We don’t have weeds because we don’t plant the seeds — we use no dirt or manure that bring weed seeds with it.”

Building raised vegetable beds proved to be a necessity he discovered after buying the hilltop hideaway.

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