Rivalry is growing in the OF&G offices as obsessive sunflower measuring becomes the order of the day.
Apparently it’s upstart new boy, producer CO Alex Patchett, leading the competition to produce the tallest helianthus annuus (don’t you just love Wikipedia?!). Alex has achieved a whopping 28cm. It’s a far cry from his widely ridiculed poor start.
Prize for the most useless effort so far also resides in the producer certification office, as Nicola Mason’s attempt was dealt a devastating blow in an unfortunate encounter with a bunny. There will be, we are told, no coming back from that!
After making all the noise in the early running with their gaudily decorated pots, the processor department ladies obviously aren’t doing enough talking to their delicate charges and have been left behind.
So here, in all its glory, is Alex’s whopping, strapping, field-leading sunflower. Don’t get too excited.
competition, growing, sunflower
That has to take the prize for the weirdest headline yet used on this blog.
But it’s not a random collection of words, it really does refer to those crazy Dutch dressing as potatoes and getting on their bikes to promote a new trail designed to raise awareness of organic farming.
You have to hand it to them for creativeness. And now you want to see the photos. Of course you do.
Off you go then…
Dutch, organic potatoes
There’s more going on with this sunflower competition than was at first apparent! It has gone beyond popping a seed in a pot and, well, waiting. It seems there’s been some over-enthusiastic pot decorating going on.
Despite the suggestion, moments ago on Twitter, from Caroline at Farmers Weekly that there should be a prize for best decorated pot, there isn’t and it seems most haven’t bothered. But that hasn’t stopped Ruth and Joanna in our Processing Department from getting a bit competitive.
I present the evidence:
Ruth is particularly pleased with herself because her sticker “can be removed and put on a bigger pot” when her pride and joy grows a bit more. Seriously – she just said it in my office. I now expect Joanna to come up with something like a multimedia flower pot for her next effort, just to stay ahead…
This could get messy.
The intra-office sunflower growing competition is well underway now, with green shoots of success starting to emerge for some of our contenders (though, bizarrely, our composting CO’s are having less luck than most!).
While there’s not much of interest to see quite yet, an opportunity has emerged for some ribbing of our new-boy Certification Officer, Alex Patchett, who seems to be having some, er, trouble in the upright department…
Please note: No sunflowers were harmed in the making of this blog post and the one you see pictured above has now been rescued with a stake (which unfortunately makes it less funny, but there you go).
Certification Officer, competition, sunflower
Time, I feel, for a Gardening Club update. The team have had their green fingers hard at work making the place look nice, so here, in pictures, is a tribute to their efforts:
A few of us are particularly looking forward to seeing this in all its summertime glory!
Office Manager, Angela, putting the finishing touches to her display.
Brightens the place up, don’t you think?
gardening, gardening club, planting
There’s movement! Plants have actually appeared in the big boxes outside the office – and quite an interesting array of them.
There’s even some kind of wire-frame chicken. Looking forward to seeing that develop…
So the green-fingered brigade here at OF&G are on the march and the toxic-fingered among us are watching with interest to see how they do it.
We’ll keep you posted.
gardening club, plants
Just for fun this, really.
We’ve been playing with the animoto.com video service, which is really quite neat, and decided to cook up this little effort for our National Organic Cereals 2009 event.
What do you think?
cereals, event, video
Is it me, or does the OF&G gardening club still have some work to do???
We had one of our regular staff meetings yesterday. Some of it is about important stuff. Some of it is useful information and a chance to give and get feedback. But by far the most entertaining part (for us non-greenfingered types) is the agenda item on ‘Gardening Club’.
The big ‘Gardening Club’ news this month is that they have got their hands on planters/troughs(/whatever) to go around the outside of the office! One has even been built (as you can see from the picture).
Obviously no actual planting has been done yet, but we’re all looking forward to the impending blooms and those of us who don’t actually dig may even egg them on to something more ambitious next year.
How about a veg patch folks?!?!
Please note: It has yet to be ascertained whether compost from an OF&G certified PAS 100/Quality Compost Protocol operator will be used in this endevour…
gardening
I’ve suspected for some time that I’m working with a bunch of jokers. However we now have official acknowledgment that this is, indeed, a fact.
When an impromptu “best” joke competition was instigated by Farmers Weekly among the denizens of Twitter, it turns out to have been none other than our very own Certification Manager, Steve Clarkson, who came up with the “best” offering.
And his prize? A stunning Farmers Weekly tractor knitting pattern. Now, in many offices this would be filed under amusing and end up in a draw. But not at Organic Farmers & Growers. Oh no. Among our multi-talented team is a master knitter (is there a proper word for that?) in the form of Certification Officer, Katie Owens. As I write Katie is obtaining Steve’s measurements and planning colour schemes. Obviously when we have the finished product Steve will be forced to model it for all to see.
You won’t be surprised to hear that it wasn’t this offering from Steve that won the joke competition:
What do you get when you cross a rooster and a cow? Cockadoodlemoo!
No, the effort that tickled the fancy of the FW team was:
What kind of milk comes from a forgetful cow? Milk of Amnesia.
Are you laughing out loud?
farmers weekly, knitting, steve clarkson
