hops 2007

now that the 2007 hop season has wrapped up, i've got a series of photos from this year's crop. you might want to check out my writeup on last year's crop for comparison.

may 20th/2007

the hops were already up to about the maximum height they reached last year - and they weren't even in the ground yet at this time last year!

the first four lines on the left are cascade, the other four are centennial. each line has 1 or 2 bines going up it. last year i gave them about 10' height to grow. this year i increased it to about 20' and tried to spread them out a bit. next year i'm thinking of splitting them and moving the centennial down on the other side of the air conditioner.

everything about this year's crop is bigger than last year. even the leaves are huge, bigger than my hand.

the vines are much thicker and stronger too. last year they were about the size of the twine, this year they're much larger.

the vines with me shown for scale. i'm 6'2, and the top of the hops are out of my reach.

august 16th/2007

a friend emailed me to ask how my crop was doing, since his first year rhizomes were tiny and had only a cone or two. as you can see, mine are growing like mad, having reached the 20' mark long ago and full of cones. it's going to be harvest time soon!

cascade in the distance, centennial closer. as with last year, the centennial isn't as big as the cascade and didn't have quite as many cones. all my plants (from 4 rhizomes) are much larger than last year.

closer shot of the centennial...

and the cascade. the cascades are going nuts. going to be a good harvest.

sept 3rd/2007

harvest day!

once again, thanks go to jason for taking some of these photos.

a look up at the cascade bines.

another, showing a bit more of them.

cascades on the left, centennial on the right.

i attached this piece of wood to the wall, then put hooks along it and i attached twine to the hooks. to harvest, we just unhooked the twine and brought the hops down to ground level. here eric has just cut down the last centennial bine and you can sort of see all the bines laying on the ground.

jenn harvesting the centennials.

eric pretending to eat the hops. i actually did eat one. kind of an interesting experience. they definitely taste like hops, but they have a crazy spicy character, almost like a hot pepper. they smell awesome too.

the results. cascade on the left, centennial on the right. this is tons more than i got last year.

sept 14/2007

after about 10 days on my drying racks i bagged everything up and weighed it. final tally: 9.6oz cascade and 3oz centennial. huge increase over the 0.5oz total that i got last year.

cascade. two 4oz bags and a 1.6oz bag.

centennial. one 3oz bag.

can't wait to see next year's crop!

hops!

this year i decided to grow some hops. i picked up four rhizomes from freshops: two cascade and two centennial. they were planted on may 22nd, 2006. here's some photos i took at various points through their growth.

june 27th, 2006

hard to judge the height from the photos, but two of the plants are around 4' tall now (well over waist height), the others are around 2-3'. the blurry ones at the end are me trying to get a closeup of the tiny little buds that have started forming since the weekend.

august 8, 2006

the hops are kind of nuts, so i took a few photos today.

centennial in the center and a bit of the cascade on the left.

me in the photo, for perspective.

shows just how nuts the cascades are going. they reached the top of the 10' lines i put up and continued to grow. they got to the point where they had about 4' dangling in the wind, then they caught back onto the original plant and started going up again. they've been throwing out side shoots all over the place too, so it's a big, crazy, tangled mess. if i'd known they'd get this big i would have put the lines up the full height of the house...

the underpants gnome. he guards the hops from the groundhog that we think is living in our neighbours yard under his deck.

close up view of the top of the cascade plant. as you can see, tons of flowers on this one. really looking forward to the harvest on this one.

same thing on the centennial. not nearly as crazy, but there's a few flowers there too.

here's a couple blurry photos of phil the groundhog.

august 12, 2006

lots of little hop cones forming.

september 25, 2006

harvest time!

centennial

cascade

here's me harvesting the centennials.

cascade on the left, centennial on the right.

the hops on my home made drying racks. centennial on the left, cascade on the right. would have been easier if i'd been consistent with the whole left/right thing.

close up view of the cascade, 0.4oz once dried.

close up view of the centennial, 0.1oz once dried.

testing...

just testing the setup of the bierblog.