Tour of Calby Farm

Potato Seed, Onions, Pecans and Wheat

Calby Molemi forms part of Sesisonke and is situated in the Western Freestate . Other then their location (5 hour drive West of Harrismith Farm) what separates them as farms is what they produce. Calby Farm specialises in growing potato seed. To the average consumer, the word ‘seed’ has an association to the beginnings of a plant or flower, and in this case it is no different. The term ‘seed’ on the farm refers to small sized potatoes. These small sized potatoes are the first stage in the planting of a new crop. Potatoes come from the planting of smaller potatoes in essence. Seed can vary in size and we market it through Wesgrow, sell across the country, and into neighbouring countries. We pack three main counts: 250, 400 and 600. This means there is an exact number per 25kg bag when packed.

Potato seed is cleaned, sorted and bagged by hand:

Another version of the process involves our automated bagging machine that weighs the quantity of table potatoes going into each bag.

ONIONS:

At Calby we also plant yellow and red onions. The yellow variety is good for cooking and the most common, while the reds are mainly used for salads and are sweeter then yellows. We stagger planting them from the months April-June. Our earliest planted onions in April are harvested in November.

PECANS:

We are at the end of the harvesting season for our Pecans. The most efficient way to remove them all from the tree is to shake them off, very similar to the harvesting of olives off an olive tree. The base of the tree is firmly held onto by the ‘Soft Grip’ tractor attachment and is vibrated very quickly. The pecans fall onto the mesh carpet below for easy mass collection.

Currently our Wheat is in its early stages of growth: