First work day - begining of March

Great turn out of the team , we had rain beginning of the week but a nice day to get out there after a few days drainage.

We weeded , hoe'ed , dug, used the tiller , and got the ground ready for first spring.

The Nugget and Cascades were just starting to shoot.

We also decided to mulch the circle centers to prevent weeds and grass being a problem , like it was last year.This required me to get a tractor working, easier said than done...... took about 3 hours in all, battery out and on charger, then reinstall, try start, no luck, easy start being careful because too much can cause a bent conrod.... eventually I managed to get it started and it ran without issue all day. Just the rear backhoe arm has an issue with left right control - seems like there is a broken spring in the control valve........ task for another day soon.



One hop got dug up thinking it was a large weed , the person will remain nameless to protect him hehehe LOL

Jason and Dans' sons both had tractor rides while carting mulch, which made their days.
Dan brought a trailer of Compost - ahem , well it was supposed to be compost and brought more mulch - to add to the 5000 tons I have on the farm


Mark also welded up the door which made a great difference as it works fine now and we were able to lock up our tools and stuff.

Mark Stoehr our new member this season, worked tirelessly with his tiller....

First work of the 2009 season

Tomorrow we spend the afternoon working in the hop yard, lost of activity already with most varieties already showing growth activity.

The rhizomes in the greenhouse have plenty of leaves already , and looking much better than last year, some of these are ones that did not sprout until very late last year and I decided to keep them potted. Others are cuttings from the clean up at end of last year. If it had buds I kept it and stored over the winter and then a month back planted into the Greenhouse.

Tomorrow we will weed the beds, clean up the area in general and till the beds that are open for new plantings to come, we should see new rhizomes in about 2-3 weeks.

We have plenty to do - but first I have to get at least one of the damn tractors to run, both we used last year have not run in a few months. The big Backhoe has a flat tire too.

Pics to follow

From Snow to tanning

Last weekend - 6" snow

This weekend , 80 deg weather , awesome, ..... at least we know winter in NC is being pushed out by the warmer air.

I fertilized the hops last weekend and went looking for activity this weekend and the shoots are right there , just below the surface.

The Greenhouse has shoots on almost all the rhizomes that were left over or newly planted during winter. Another 10 plants , at least 4 Chinooks and definitely 4 Goldings, not sure of the other two yet. The pots have got algae growing on them so I need to dry them out to see what the text is.

Well it was a winter weekend

More of an interesting set of pics...than hop info




Greensboro had 6 inches of snow Sunday evening, so I got up early and went across to the Hops Farm for some Winter Pics..