Hops are a fascinating crop. After stringing and training the hops in May, we stood back and watched them grow. At the summer solstice, the bines stopped growing up, which was okay. Because many of them reached 20 feet tall! Then the ‘side-arms’ started to grow. Consider those little branches that were soon covered in cones. By this past weekend, the hops were ready to harvest.
To clarify, the growing season wasn’t really a watch and wait kind of thing. My brother, cousin and their families worked HARD this growing season in order to reap the rewards of their first harvest. After all there were weeds to pull and water to haul and more weeds to pull.
But all the work was worth the first day of harvest. Watch here: https://www.wevideo.com/hub#media/ci/1194702568
(Pictures and embedded video to come.)
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