ORGANIC GROWERS WALK IN WICKLOW

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ORGANIC GROWERS WALK IN WICKLOW

Oliver Kelly is holding an OGI (Organic Growers of Ireland) walk on Monday 29th July at 6PM.

Oliver Moore: Tell me about your farm Oliver

Oliver Kelly: The farm is in Kiltegan Wicklow, 3 miles from Baltinglass. Its 17/18 hectares of mixed land, some of it is unimproved wetland. We're at the edge of hills here, in the shadow of the mountain. The soil type ranges form light well drained soil to heavy peaty soil. Six hectares is in mixed veg.

OM: How did you get into organic growing?
OK: I'm organic since 1997, whe
n my parents retired. Since I was 13 I 'd been working on Denis Healy's (organic vegetable) farm next door. I also worked there after I left school, and worked there full time. After that, I went out on my own.

Organic made sense here on my land. Its only a small farm, with cattle and sheep you wouldn't make a full living. Organic veg made it possible to make a living on a small area.

OM: What do you grow?
OK: The crops here are leeks, swedes, carrots, parsnips, kale and potatoes. I carry 30 ewes to graze the rest of it.

OM: So you are a field scale producer, rather than smallholder?
OK: Yes, its field scale here. We have three fields growing at any one time. The rotation would be potato first year, root veg the second, brassica the third then grass.

OM: How do you sell your veg?
OK: We sell onto other producers who sell at farmers' markets or through box schemes. Absolutely Organic and Home Organics are the box schemes.

I'm lucky in that I'm just supplying other producers. There has been a bit of a drop off in recent years. I could have sold only to Denis Healy four ago, but now I have to go to four or five different customers to sell the same amount. But certainly, there is still a market out there for organic veg.

For example, I got in touch with (organic distributors) Simply Organic when I was worried that the leeks were about to bolt, they were well able to deal with it. So the market isn't a problem, but you do have to go to more people to sell everything.

OM: How was your potato crop last year?
OK: Last years potato crop wasn't great, I got some out, but it was one of the poorest crops I ever grew. I tried records, charlotte, robinta and sarpo mira. The sarpos were the best yielding. They had a good flavour, they start waxy and gets floury, and are reasonably blight resistant. Charlotte did reasonably well too, but other years it was great. Its very popular with customers, waxy but with a good flavor. The records are very floury, but they didn't go so well last year. The potatoes were a good size, but the numbers were small in the ground.

OM: What's the biggest challenge?
OK: Weed control. Getting casual labour in to manage the weeds can be difficult. We do mechanical weeding for what's sown directly into the ground, and gas to burn off weeds and give the crops a two to three week head start. Later on, we have a brush weeder.

Slugs too are a challenge. In the heavy ground last year, we just had to write off some land for a while. Now that land is very dry and not suitable for veg. I'll let it recover, go into grass and then look at it again. I'll have to do some drainage to bring down water table in it I'd say.

This year's weather has been good so far, the crops are doing well. The late Spring didn't bother me too much, as I held back on planting, after last year's leeks bolted.

That's our discussion regarding ORGANIC GROWERS WALK IN WICKLOW

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