The first photo is a look across several rows, with most of the view showing Cascades. Of all the varieties in his hopyard, which include Willamette, Golding, Fuggles, and Centennial, these do the best. In fact, that's why I didn't plant them - I want more space for those than I have in the backyard in Alexandria, so I settled on getting some variety instead.
The second photo offers a close up of cones forming, again on the Cascades. But this is the case with all of his plants - they're are all busting out like crazy this year. He has taken to calling 2014 the year of the hop, as a matter of fact.
Later in the day, I spoke to another friend in Luray, Bill, who planted a half-dozen Cascade rhizomes that Dan gave him in his in-town backyard. I used some of his hops in my "Tax-Day IPA" from earlier this year. Bill reported that his plants have gone crazy too - I spied them a little bit from the parking lot when I took Tessie for her walk.For a long time, Dan has suspected that some pecan trees in the backyard, near where the hops are, were having a negative impact on the Willamettes production. He decided to take a couple of rhizomes and plant them as decoration on their patio. The final photo I have here shows how one of those plants is doing - looking good again this year.
Last year, Mary and I took a week-long vacation at Hawksbill Cabin, and on one of the days we went up to neighbor Dan's for a cook-out. We took a walk through the hopyard that time as well - here's a link to the post, showing the plants at nearly the same stage as what I saw yesterday:http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2013/05/hops-progress.html
I still have some vacation posts to catch up on, and I'll get back to those tomorrow.
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