Monday, October 19, 2009

Preparing for winter

Despite smashing numerous decades-old temperature records this summer (37.1 C on June 4th, for example) Lillooet's weather continues to surprize with record-setting lows. The blue stalactite-looking spike on October 12th marks a new record low for the area and was a stark reminder of the rapid transition from summer to fall in Lillooet. Less than three weeks ago we were enjoying a +30 C days -- ideal conditions for drying our first harvest of hops (more to come on that topic later this week).
This early cold snap was enough incentive to start moving the potted hop plants indoors for the winter. So we cut the bines and twine from each plant and brought them into our garage where we sandwiched them with layers of peat to maintain steady temperatures and prevent the plants from drying out during the cold, dry winter.



The bines were then separated from the twine, collected and added to the compost pile. While the hops sit dormant over the winter, we will focus on building up a much larger, healthy composting system as our primary source of organic nutrients to the farm.



After a final count of the hop plants, we managed a 89% success rate in propagating rhizomes to their full plant potential. Not surprisingly, the organic Willamette from Left Field Farm faired best with a 99% success rate compared to the other varieties from non-organic sources south of the border. These were treated with a contact fungicide and endured a long transport from south of the border which probably contributed to their lack of vigor. For example, only 56% of Chinooks were successful however those that were propagated produced heaps of hops - thankfully.

It was also a pleasant surprise to see that most Mt. Hood and Cascade plants rebounded from the brink after we fixed the problem in the irrigation lines. At $3.75 per rhizome and countless hours of tending, that could have been a costly error!


Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The First Harvest and a Recap

Over the course of three weekends, we managed to pick by hand our entire 2009 hop crop with relative ease. Beginning September 5th, we had 5 sets of eager hands picking only the most ripe hops from among our ten varieties. As this was our first harvest, there was much discussion on what a 'ripe' hop cone actually was. The books describe a ripe cone as dry and papery to the touch, light/pale green in colour, and rebounding quickly after compressing the cone. These were all helpful hints but found that the 'dry, papery feel' of the hop was the best indicator for ripeness.



Initially picking into large freezer bags, we noticed condensation on the inside of the bags indicating that the freshly-picked hops were actively releasing moisture and decided to pick into more breathable burlap bags to keep the hops breathing freely.



The first harvest day was bittersweet (the bad sort of bitter) in that 3 of our varieties (Cascade, Mt. Hood, and Willamette) were hit hard following a failure in the irrigation lines. A faulty plug at the end of the line was forced out and overlooked for almost 2 weeks, starving about 300 potted hop plants a single drink of water during one of the hottest periods of the summer. The dried, dead bines were a dreadful sight considering these varieties looked like they were going to produce one hell of a crop just a few weeks earlier. Forced to see the glass as half-full, our other high-alpha varieties flowered a very healthy crop. Chinook, Galena, and Magnum all produced well over one pound of dried product.


All told, almost 10 pounds of dried hop cones resulted from the harvest. A seemingly small amount given the number of plants (750) but when considering their humble beginnings from small rhizome cuttings, we think this has been a resounding success!

Thanks to Tim, Ash, Heather, Kelly, and Sean for helping out with this year's harvest!


Unfortunately, the Bitterbine Blog was sorely neglected over the course of the summer, so I plan to post some retrospective blogs to cover the months of June, July, and August - three very busy months worth documenting. More to come!

Monday, May 25, 2009

Welcome, the training of the bines

Welcome to the Bitterbine Blog! There are are few reasons why I started a blog detailing the progress at the Bitterbine Farm.

First, I hope to keep in touch with my extended family who mainly reside in Ontario. Having a Catholic background you might guess that I am part of a rather large family and it's simply too difficult to reach out over the phone, e-mail, or snail mail on a regular basis. Instead, I thought I would join the world of blogging as an alternative means of keeping in touch.

For those who are interested in actually growing hops yourselves, well then you are in luck! My second goal with this blog is to document our hop-growing project every step of the way. I hope to shed some light on the biology of Humulus lupulus, report on how the varieties fare in the unique climate of Lillooet, British Columbia, talk shop from a farmer's perspective, and generally showcase the herculean growth potential of hops throughout the summer season.

Lastly, The Bitterbine Blog will act as a show-and-tell of sorts. Every week we will have photographs of the hops as they train themselves up a ten-foot trellis, and hopefully lots of pictures of friends and family helping out as farmhands along the way!


THE TRAINING OF THE BINES

Last weekend, co-CFO (Chief Farming Officer) Tim Hazard, my brother Paul, and our amazing neighbour Hal fixed the trellis system of the hop nursery. The week prior, wind gusts in excess of 80 km/h tested the structural integrity of this 10' trellis system, causing the posts to sway widly in all directions despite the guy wires. We decided to make some adjustments to the design by affixing the posts to each other with 1"x4"s to form a more unified structure. We think the changes produced a much stronger system. Special thanks to Hal for his sage advice! We will need to continually monitor the trellis as the hops begin to grow upwards adding hundreds if not thousands of additional pounds of vegetation to the system. We'll keep you 'posted'.


We were also surprised to see our hops taking off in their vertical pursuit for more sun! First out of the gates were the Willamette plants, with bines about 3 feet long by May 22nd. This particular variety originated from Left Fields Farm, the home of the coveted organic Crannog (pronounced with a long, drawn out 'O', NOT Crann-awe-g) Ales Farmhouse Brewery. The other 9 varieties came from a large conventional hop farm in Oregon. We think that the organic upbringing of the Willamette rhizomes is the reason for its early, vigorous growth to date. However, once established at our hopyard, all 10 varieties will soon produce certified organic hops!


At three feet in length, it was definitely time to train the hop bines up their respective climbing routes. We tossed 20' lengths of braided sisal over the horizontal trellis rope and brought a line down to each pot where we wrapped the bines clockwise in an east-west direction. The bines stuck like glue to the sisal with their velcro-like stalks. I'll have to post a macro-shot of the bine stalk to really demonstrate its gripping abilities. It's quite amazing!





Enjoy the blog!