First Harvest of 2009 - 8/8/09

We had our first harvest of the year in early August. A few Centennial plants bloomed early and we harvested 5 plants on August 8th.

Ahhhhh....the sweet smell of freshly picked hops! We were able to get about 2 pounds from these first few plants.

We built our own custom racks for drying the hops. The racks are about 4' by 4' and can hold up to 3 pounds of dried hops each.

Mid-Summer Update - July 30, 2009

June and July were two of the wettest months on record in New England (over 10" of rain in July alone!), but the hops didn't seem to mind. Luckily the farm is located on nice glacial outwash deposits so drainage is generally not an issue. And once the sun finally came out at the end of July, the plants really started to take off.

The second and third year plants did fantastic. They reached the top of the trellis and began lateral growth by early July.

Some of the first year plants, Cascade in particular, performed much better than we thought. Others did pretty well, while some really...sucked. This helped us determine which varieties will do well around here though.

Breaking Ground - May 25, 2009

We broke ground in more ways than one in May of 2009. The new trellis system was just completed, some of the second and third year plants were already 1 to 2 feet high, and the new grass seed was taking off. Little did we know, this would probably the warmest day for the next 2 months.

The Crew

Joel is the muscle of the operation. He also brings the horitcultural know-how, and discounts on tools, equipment, and fertilizer.









Matt likes to think he brings the general "beer knowledge". In addition to farm work, Matt does a lot of the promoting and advertising. And no, he doesn't golf.






Kara is Joel's sister and Matt's wife, so she keeps everyone in line. She's also the quickest hop picker in New England. And as you can see from the picture, she loves genips.






Abe is the all-purpose guy. He can plant, water, and pick with the best of them. He's also on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Excluding Monday through Friday. And some weekends when he has to work.