When Ron Helman was 12, he was itching to learn how to plant a garden.
His dad finally relented.
“He says, ‘You wanted a garden, there you are,” Helman recalled. “He plowed up about an acre of ground.”
The rest of the work was up to Helman, the youngest of 12.
So he dutifully planted, tended and finally harvested an assortment of produce.
Little did he realize it, but gardening soon would become baked into his DNA.
Now 76, Helman has grown a garden essentially every year since then, aside from two summers more than 30 years ago. “Got divorced,” he said with a chuckle.
Today, with the harvesting just beginning, Helman’s garden looks as fruitful as ever, “as long as this rain stops,” he said.
What began as a hobby, a way to grow some of his own food, soon became a boon, both physically and mentally.
Helman, who retired in 2018 as a longtime press operator and later courier for the Iola Register, noted a day in the garden makes a perfect way to erase the day’s stresses.
“I’d just go out there and forget about everything,” he said.
He’s made some adjustments as his body has aged. Helman uses a riding lawn mower to tote his vegetables back to his house, on account of his rickety knee and aching shoulders that can’t carry what they once could.
And most of his work is done by 10 a.m., when temps are at their coolest.
“I was the youngest of 12, the baby,” he joked. “I don’t feel much like a baby now.”
HELMAN HAS eight separate plots filling much of his 3 ½ acres south of Iola.
He and gardening partner Tim Cox have already pulled out 1,200 pounds of potatoes earlier this month — nearly all of which has been given away.
