Here’s a shot of them after we cleaned them all up:

Here is the result when handling the plants without gloves or long sleeves:

Progress so far in pictures:
Click to view slideshow.

First sprouts of the year!

Here are more pictures from the farm. All of the rope is rotted, so that needs to be replaced, some of the wires came loose, but they just have to be tightened. The drip irrigation has seen better days but hopefully it still works. Odd thing though, many of the rhizomes have broken the surface and are chillin’. But the rhizomes are hearty and healthy. To battle the weed problem, we are going to try wood chips instead of straw. This may help control it.

One of many rhizomes that breached the surface.

Hope we can just throw dirt over them.

Hops farm at sunset

-Visit the field and see what the winter season has brought
-Secure wires that have come loose
-Purchase twine that will withhold the elements and weight of the plants
-Once the weather breaks, plow and fertilize (organically of course)
-Check drip irrigation system, make any repairs
-Hang up the twine and secure
-Continue with weeding, and fertilizing
-Watch the hops grow!

Now that we have experienced all of this, we know what to expect and cannot wait to see the fruits of our labor.

Burnt Leaves

I found some of the leaves were burning from the outside in. 

And then I found some vines that just burned all the way to the top (thinking these vines met there match with a weedwacker).

Burnt Vines

I’m assuming these leaves were munched on by critters…the next picture may be culprit!

Something was hungry

Perhaps it was this little guy!

Tiny culprit

And even though discovering these things was discouraging, I came across this wonderful row of Hops:

Cascade Hops

Another Cascade

There seems to be problems dowloading the rest of the pictures. If you go to the link in my blogroll called “Progression of Hops”, it will take you to Photobucket where you can view the rest of the photos. Below is a picture taken right before I left, as you can see, a lot of the rows have either taken their time to grow or haven’t grown at all. I have no idea when we need to start picking the hops and I have no idea when to start cutting them down to the crown. Again, if anyone has advice or ideas, send them my way!

Look how green!

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Dr. Wyche's Yellow

I headed up to the farm to check on the hops progress. Wow, are they progressing! Rapidly. Wire and rope need to be installed immediately.

Not exactly where we marked it

This guy is about a foot tall

It was very exciting to see our hard work was paying off. We will need a good couple of hours to weed and throw down more straw. Perhaps this week if the weather cooperates.
I was able to get an hour of planting time in at the garden, below are pictures of lettuce, spinach and the new tomato and pepper plants.

This is not my lettuce, but will look like that soon

This is my pathetic lettuce...

This is quite tasty

Tomato & Pepper Plants

Pepper Flower

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