OF&G :: The Blog

With our own staff madly slicing away for an in-house competition, we’ve been treated to some fine examples of the dark art of pumpkin carving from some of our friends too.

We’ll be revealing the OF&G entries in good time (haven’t seen them all myself yet!) but to keep things moving, here’s what others have been up to:

A first time attempt from Harper Adams student, Claire McClellan, does her credit!

Farmer, Sam Kingston, got to work on a 'Bumkin' (butternut squash x pumpkin) for this fine effort.

And one final, self indulgent addition. Design for this one is all the work of my five-year-old son. Knife wielding courtesy of his mother!

Another first timer's design - this one by a five-year-old!

Thanks to Claire and Sam for allowing us to share their efforts here. You can catch up with both of them on social networking site, Twitter. (Claire / Sam)

It’s with great pleasure that we can reveal the OF&G Pumpkin Caper has been elevated to new levels with the involvement of expert independent judges.

Well, I say ‘expert’, by which I mean Caroline Stocks, deputy news editor of Farmers Weekly, and Isabel Davies, Farmers Weekly community editor. Caroline is, according to Isabel, a “demon” pumpkin carver in her own right, while Isabel obviously knows a thing or two because she is the main pumpkin supplier to the FW team, via her mum. So that must make them experts, right?

Whatever, they are no doubt discerning judges of a good vegetable-based carving and we are privileged that they have agreed to help us out in this crucially important matter.

The standards are high though. Isabel insists they will be looking for “innovation as well as artistic flair”. So no pressure then.

The entries are trickling in so far, but given that the deadline is the end of play tomorrow, we expect a veritable rush of another five or so by then. At which point they will be photographed with suitable t-light illumination and sent off to our esteemed judges for a decision. Don’t hold your breath though. It’s vital the judges are not hurried in their deliberations, so we’ll just have to wait on tenterhooks until they decide to put the entrants out of their misery.

Ooh, gripping.

Always game for a laugh, a bunch of OF&G staffers have now accepted the challenge to create the best pumpkin carving as a way to bring fulfilment to their lives following the end of the sunflower competition!

Thanks to suggestions from our followers on Twitter, the new wheeze was soon whipped up and a supply of pumpkins obtained for those wishing to chance their artistic arm for widespread admiration or ridicule…

[Note: the pumpkins are, sadly, not organic. We couldn't find any. Do they exist?]

No sooner was the orange payload dropped in the office than ever-keen Certification Officer, Roy Lawford, was hard at work scooping out the innards and getting to work on his design.

So, we proudly bring you the first entrant in the OF&G Pumpkin Caper:

A fine first entry to our competition by CO, Roy Lawford

I think you’d have to agree Roy has set the standard there. The plant/hair is kind of incidental, but this pic became a must following a suggestion from Twitter friend Claire McClellan who saw the first, less strategically positioned, photo and pointed out our obvious neglect! Thanks, Claire.

The others who are taking part have until Friday to get carving and then we’ll see about getting a line-up photo of them, suitably illuminated.

Another key step on the (long, slow and somewhat tortuous) route to our Certification Manager, Steve, getting his Farmers Weekly tractor jumper has been achieved.

The wool has arrived, courtesy of the lovely Juliet Morris at Ystrad Organics, who is also one of our Twitter friends.

Our resident knitter, Certification Officer Katie Owens, is gearing up to start this crucial piece of work. I believe, though, that a mini version is being completed first for Katie’s God son, which should be complete by next week.

It’s all getting quite exciting. Interestingly, the enquiries about getting copies of the pattern are still flowing in. It makes you wonder whether the FW team should be looking at getting an updated version done. They could probably double sales of the magazine for a week!

Here’s our wool, ready and waiting to be turned into the finest knitted creation OF&G will ever have seen…

Our organic wool from http://www.ystradorganics.co.uk/

We will, of course, keep you updated.

…. not altogether a surprise. Let’s face it, if you’ve been following our sunflower shenanigans you’ll be well aware that there’s been a clear leader for a while now.

However, today we have the full results and can put to bed a very colourful episode at The Old Estate Yard.

There has been controversy, competitiveness, secret recipes and devastating rabbit damage. The competition has been reported in a leading trade publication and posts on the topic have had a disturbing tendency to top the “most read” list on this blog.

So without further ado, let the ceremony commence:

[ENTER STAGE RIGHT]

Ladies and Gentlemen – and Certification Officers,

The OF&G sunflower growing competition was the product of an inspired suggestion made at a staff meeting while the company “gardening club” was being discussed.

Obviously there was a great deal of work to be done to ensure the success of such a mighty undertaking, but after 12 committee meetings and legal approval of the proposed rules and regulations (a document only slightly more involved in its preparation than the Magna Carta), our intrepid entrants were free to unleash their horticultural skills.

Meticulous planning was demonstrated by some of the more committed entrants, while some simply opted to drop in a seed and draw faces on their plant pots.

As growing began in earnest, there were some testing times along the way, as well as challenging hurdles to be negotiated.

Not all entrants made it serenely to the eventually necessary re-potting stage, though special mention has to be made of the specimen that was, to all intents and purposes, completely devoured by a rabbit, only to come storming back to an eventually mid-field placing. A sunflower we can salute for its true Dunkirk spirit!

It is likely that this ceremony will not be the final chapter in the story for those who were there. The debate on the selection of suitable finishing pots will rumble on in years to come. But today is our chance to recognise commitment, achievement and skill. And with that we open the envelope of dreams…

In reverse order:

Processing CO, Ruth Lamb – 107cm (died due to lack of water. Tch)

Processing CO, Joanna Gleeson – 116cm (Commended for most attractively decorated seedling pot)

Producer CO, Katie Owens – 123cm (worthy, but disappointing)

Quality Systems Admin, Lorraine Pickering – 132cm (alleged ’secret feed’ proved, well, pointless)

Producer CO, Nicola Mason – 146cm (the famous rabbit-mauling comeback)

Office Manager, Angela Norman – 170cm (arguably our most green-fingered person. Was she mugged?)

And the clear winner, with a delightful specimen that could probably make two dozen bottles of oil all on its own…

Producer CO, Alex Patchett – 205cm (cor blimey, wot a whopper!)

Congratulations to Alex. Please step up and take your bow:

Our worthy winner. Alex Patchett with his impressive entry.

And with that, we’d like to thank everyone who has supported this endeavour, including: our worldwide Twitter followers; the Chief Executive, for not shutting it down when it all got a bit silly; Stephen Clarkson, the judge and jury; our mums; the sun; the great British summer; and especially the bees. But not the rabbit.

The impartial observers among us are getting the distinct feeling that the great OF&G sunflower competition is all over bar the shouting.

Er, do you think we have a winner yet?

The picture probably says it all. That fine specimen of a perfectly formed sunflower is the pride and joy of Certification Officer, Alex Patchett, who has nurtured it from seedling to strapping XX-footer.

The deliberate avoidance of giving a height there comes down to the fact that we are nearing ‘official’ measuring time, when the man with the tape will give his final verdict (this week or next depending on when he can be bothered or is actually working from the office instead of a train).

Given the sorry state of some of the other entrants, you’d have to say things are looking good for Alex, but after a nail-biting summer it will be a relief to all to have an official verdict and chance to name-check  the runners-up (politically correct speak for ‘the losers’).

It’s not clear at the moment whether there will be another seasonal event to harness the competitive spirit that bursts forth from OF&G Towers, but somehow a poinsettia growing contest in time for Christmas just doesn’t have the same kind of unbridled drama…

Okay, a bit of fun to start the day. You surely can’t have failed to notice hip hop artist Kanye West being lambasted across the media for his incredibly arrogant and cringeworthy interruption of unfortunate MTV award winner, Taylor Swift.

Well, it seems no-one is going to let Kanye forget it for a while as parody after parody of the incident parades itself across the internet. But you can imagine how shocked we were to find OF&G embroiled in the whole affair…

Get off our website Mr West. We know Beyonce has a better site, but they were visiting us – this was our moment in the sun!

An apology is expected imminently…

[Get your own, personalised Kanye interruption here: http://kanyelicio.us]

Given that we’re getting more feedback about our sunflower competition and the knitting of a jumper than anything else posted on this blog, I thought you’d better have an update on the current state of affairs in the former.

This is the very latest photograph, taken in just the last half hour. I’m no horticultural expert, but I guess the state of play won’t have altered much in that time…

The clear leader is still CO, Alex Patchett. You can see his entry over towards the right of the pic. I’ve avoided using the term ‘new boy’ about Alex again there (well, sort of) because he’s actually now a fully-fledged, qualified and let loose on the organic world certification officer. That alone deserves our congratulations, but I suspect, given how things have been going on the feedback front, that he’ll be earning more kudos for his growing prowess than his ability to assess an inspection report!

Apparently Lorraine, one of our quality systems admins, is done and dusted as far as our competition is concerned. Her somewhat stunted effort has apparently reached its terminal height and is good now only for harvesting and certainly not for contesting the most hotly fought sunflower growing competition this side of the River Severn.

Of course, at the end of the slightly tortuous process there has to be a victor. I hope the excitement among the contestants isn’t flaring too fiercely because I’m told the 2009 champion shouldn’t be expecting to walk away with a new car and a lifetime supply of booze as their reward!