The first year in summary

So to summarize the year:

We prepared land and beds for around 100 potential plants, we ended up buying 70 total split up into the following:
Nugget x12 (all grew)
Cascade x12 (lost 2)
Centennial x 8 (lost 1)
Mt Hood x8 (all grew)
Goldings x8 (all grew)
Willamette x 8 ( lost 1)
Chinook x 10 (3 grew and 3 more eventually came out in greenhouse)
Sterling x 8 (lost 5 - 4 of those to animals)

The most voracious growers were the Nugget, Cascades, and Centennial , followed by Chinook and Goldings. Weakest were Sterling. Most yield - Cascade and Centennials followed by Nuggest and Chinook and Goldings.

Water was a challenge, the well was only repaired very late in the season , early August, and this was a setback for us.

We learned that hops are a gross feeder plant and the use of the rotten mulch as a soil enhancer was not very sensible as it tied up the Nitrogen and reduced growth. Once we realized this and fed the plants they took off, at first I used some "Miracle Grow", and after that used a balanced general fertilizer, spread liberally at base of the vines.

We chose to let any and all greenery grow this first season, so that we would get a big root system for future , this was at the expense of hops cone production, but we still harvested about 4-5 lbs of hops overall.




And dried them on racks in the container we organized from the farmer, sadly a set of large storms came through and blew the door off its hinges and damaged most of the picked hops



But the small $$ we all have invested so far will easily return itself next year, with a lb or two of hops to each stake holder if my projections are correct, the commercial guys get as much as 10lbs per bine on vigorous growing varaieties like Cascades and Nugget, and 3-4lbs per other varienties, with 2 bines per rootstock, we should be good next year.

We only overspent the budget by $75, and more than half the team worked all season including the clean up this last weekend.

Questions for next season:

1) Are all stakeholders happy to continue and prepared to continue to work or do we buy out the ones who were not able to help with the work
2) Do we plant more hops of the varienties that did work?
3) Do we abandon Sterling, as a bad example ?? Or do we try again and have better animal control ?
4) Do we install an irrigation system?
5) Do we mulch the circle centers for better grass and weed control ?

Please comment here or email me for any more information....

Rick

End of the hop season

Oh well

I have not been very good about updating this blog, as life (to quote an ad) has come at me fast in last 2 months. Been across the Atlantic 3 times in last month, once to Africa, twice to Europe. Our Club has also had our first sanctioned beer competition last weekend, so a little busy to say the least.

The Hops season has come to an end with the first frost a week back and as expected some plants took a knock. We have learned a bunch from season one.

Hops are gross feeders and need fertilizer and water constantly in beginning of growing season, once cones get there ---- water water water.

Of course the weeds also like the food and water, we will need to do a better job of weed suppression, some have suggested we kill off the grass in the centers of the circles and mulch, and we will probably do this early season, and use some roundup to keep the beds clear of the infringing grass.

The plants delivered surprisingly well for season one, Nugget, Cascades and Centennials all did very very well, Mt Hood, Golding OK, and Chinooks did well too. Willamette and Sterling were poor.

We will need to decide what course of action we follow next year, maybe try a few new ones?? and certainly fill extra plants in the 3 that did so well , to complete the circles of all three.

Chinnoks will also add a few more plants..

As for qty, well I had intended to be very accurate , but we picked a bunch of hops and put them on racs for drying and the storms came, blew the drying containers door off its hinges and drenced the "drying" hops, thus they oxidised and turned brown. I estimate at least 4lbs were picked , with the three already mentioned being the vast majority of that 4lbs.

We entertained quite a few visitors along the way, we had a group of business students from NC State, who were seeing if they could make a business case for Hops in NC, we also recently had a Christmas tree farmer who wants to change over to some hops in Ashe County. I am always happy to talk about what we started.

Disease and pests....... luckily NONE. We had something eat the young plants right at the begining, probably a bunny or Phil the groundhog, and I will take better steps with young new plants next year.

We have started the clean up the hops yard, and will cut off all greenery at the ground and mulch up the rootstock and will water with a weak fertilizer mix once done.

Till the late winter, except for a few pics, this will be the last Hops post, but will update the brewing tasks and talk about the new controller I am playing with.