March / April 2010

Well not exactly weekly , but will try to keep up again.

We are year 4 - amazing........ NC weather was very strange this winter, ice cold all the way to mid March, with not a single warm day - unheard of around here. In fact our Farmer who was born on the farm and in his 70's now , said it was the worst winter he can remember.

So the hops were still sleeping all the way into March, just the tiniest of green buds, then we had a week of 80 deg weather and they went gang busters. We are now mid April and we have 4ft of growth and have still not even completed winter weeding - we also slept until it got warm.

The Main varieties are all growing strongly, but it is produce or die for Goldings and Willamette this year. Rest all did fine last year.

Experimental varieties have all done well (2nd Year now) and I have 4 new ones from Germ Plasm Laboratories of the USDA.

Irrigation is up and running again, after rebuilding the piping in the well house, we also extended the PVC feed pipe back to the faucet and buried it, so no longer have to run a hosepipe.

Have fertilized with a high Nitrogen feed and will now used Miracle gro again as they are starting to set cones. Growth has been very quick this year and we have had to work most weekends to keep up with weeds and cleaning up bines.

New season

After a miserable Winter which stayed cold for 3 months with no warm days (very unusual for NC) , we had a sudden warm up 2nd week of March and the hops literally popped out the ground in about 4 days.

We have had two work days to get on top of the ever present weeds , and have harvested rhizomes too, about 150 Cascades, and now starting on Nugget , 30 potted up so far. Chinooks next and maybe Mt Hood as well.

Two new members in the co-op after 4 dropped out , one through moving away and three just not having time anymore.  We agreed that the founding members would remain silent partners and also get a share of product, as they put plenty sweat equity into the foundation of the hops yard.

No expansion planned this year , I am too bushed and the damn tractor I fixed last year is dead again.

The extended cold weather also froze up the well head pipes and will have to do repairs there too, despite putting a 60 watt bulb in for heating.... next year I will wrap pipes with a Reptile heating pad.