‘Tabling’ the millet

1. Six types of brooms are manufactured at the Tumut Broom Factory, each requiring different quantities of millet.
2. Millet is planted as a staggered 90 day crop over a six month period.
3.It is then harvested by hand as the millet is too tall to be mechanically harvested. The millet is ‘tabled’ – the process of bending over armfuls of millet stalks from different rows to form an interlaced table of millet. A small knife is then used to remove the millet heads.

Millet is dried for three weeks

4. The bundles of millet heads are spread out on tables to dry for a day, then taken inside and put over racks for three weeks for further drying, and removal of the millet seed.

5. The millet is delivered to the factory then hand graded for length and quality.

6. The millet is bound onto the broom handle using wire, with the straightest fibres placed on the outside of the broom to achieve a nice finish.

The broom is sewn using a stitching machine

7. The broom is sewn using a stitching machine, with between two and seven lines of heavy thread stitched across the millet depending on the size of the broom.

8. The broom is trimmed, labelled and packaged for collection.

Brooms are packaged and ready for collection