Now it's a Hop Yard - @hawksbillhops

Here's a pano my buddy Hairdoo took at the planting event the other day.  Fairview donuts to the right.

Toasting the volunteers, and
the hop yards!

This will be my final post on getting the hop yards established - it's been an intense six weeks or so, and I have some other things I want to cover in the blog.  From here on out, through the growing season, we'll post a weekly update on how things are going at the hop yards.  This post is a wrap on our May 2 planting event.

I hadn't planned on making much of a speech or anything, but at the end of the event, I suppose it was appropriate, and David and the volunteers drafted me.  I don't exactly remember what I said, except maybe a stupid pun about everybody being HOPPY.  By Sunday it had hit home how much work it was, and how much I appreciated the support of a few communities that I had mentioned in a Facebook post:

"Here's a quick note to put a wrap on the event yesterday - we had a good crowd of quick workers that made short work of our 800 rhizomes. Let me say again how much I appreciate the support we've received from the community - actually three communities, including my Air Force friends, DC friends, and Luray friends - to get this thing started. With the hop yards established, we feel like we are in a good place, and now we'll get to the business of shepherding the plants into production. Thanks again, everyone!"

These are the Cascades rows - in the far back, that is our
row of Goldings...we'll be watching it closely!

 I can't overstate how much all the support has meant to us.  A few final things to check off from this series of posts are the two photos that follow.  They show our Cascade rows all laid out and planted, with irrigation installed.  Plus a close-up of one of the hoses on that row.

We have a row of Goldings in the yard this year, only one row, because I couldn't get enough rhizomes for two.  Several people have told me there's a good reason for it being difficult to find them - apparently they are very susceptible to mildews, so the farmers shy away from them.  My hope is that with our planning - we have them on the last row to the west so they get the best afternoon sun and plenty of airflow - this will be a good variety for us.

Here's a last closeup - probably the Fuggles row.

And then there is the fact that one of our early arrival volunteers planted this row herself...and promised to come back weekly to drive by and check on them.  So with all that energy focused on these guys, I don't know how we can fail!

By surprise, Neighbor Dan brought along some cuttings from his Cascades and his Centennials.  So we used 20 of the Cascades to fill out the end of a row we had over in that section, and then we marked a spare row to put in the 25 or so Centennials.  We'll see how they do - Dan has had pretty good success with propagation.

He told me he has sprouting Hallertauer and Fuggles - about 20 more plants - that are looking for a home.  I invited them to put them in "Dan's Row" with the Centennials - we'll just leave about 10 feet between the varieties so we can keep them straight at harvest.  He said he'd stop by during the week to put them in.

So that brings this phase to a close.  In the next week or two we'll see them break through the surface, and then leaves and shoots will appear.  We'll have to get to work on tying and training them to grow up the trellis soon enough after that - and that will be the topic of my next post on Hawksbill Hop Yards!

More Photos from @hawksbillhops Planting Day

Today I thought I might share a few highlight photos from our planting event on May 2.  These were sent along from Bonnie, one of our Valley friends, who was kind enough to share them.  I've picked and captioned eight of them to give a good overview of the activities of the day.  Enjoy!

Planting Time @hawksbillhops

Two of our volunteers working on one of the Cascades rows,
with steam rising off the new ground to the east.

Almost as fast as that, Saturday morning broke and it was the day for planting our 800 rhizomes at Hawksbill Hop Yards.  We'd set up the event a few weeks ago, and all the rhizomes began to arrive, the finishing touches got done on our trellis, and we did a tour of the yard with the Virginia Tech folks.  Now, as long as the rain held off, we were looking forward to having 20 or so friends and volunteers join us to plant this field!

David had gotten out there early and done some extra set-up.  It's an understatement to say we'd be nowhere without his help.  That preparation was key to things moving so quickly on Saturday morning.

The photos I'm sharing have come from a couple of the volunteers, I got busy enough that I didn't take many, and I think there was a seven-minute stretch there where I didn't even look at Facebook.  As I wrote there:

"Here's a quick note to put a wrap on the event yesterday - we had a good crowd of quick workers that made short work of our 800 rhizomes. Let me say again how much I appreciate the support we've received from the community - actually three communities, including my Air Force friends, DC friends, and Luray friends - to get this thing started. With the hop yards established, we feel like we are in a good place, and now we'll get to the business of shepherding the plants into production. Thanks again, everyone!"

David and Dan discussing the hop yards.

Our volunteers knocking out a couple of rows.

Between worries about the rain and mud, and not knowing how long it might take the group to put in the 800 rhizomes, we'd planned that the event would take 3 to 4 hours.  The soft ground working in our favor, however, and the whole acre was knocked out in about 90 minutes.  I couldn't believe it!

Afterwards, folks spent some time socializing and visiting, and a couple of folks signed on for tours with David, who showed them how the irrigation system works, along with some technical discussion of the trellis - our showstopper!  

Like I mentioned above, with the plants in the ground, now we get on with the work of shepherding them through the growth phase.  These exuberant plans were already sprouting while we let them come up to ambient temperature, so we kept them watered in preparation for planting.  I think we're going to have leaves showing by Monday!

@hawksbillhops - Final Prep Day

The view from the hoop house - where the raspberries grow!

On Wednesday afternoon I received a text message from David with some photos - he and Eric had completed the trellis and now everything was set for planting.  This thing was all set to come off!


I had made plans to be at the farm on Friday to help with final preparation for our planting event on May 2.  Of course there was a drenching spring rain on Thursday, giving us one more thing to worry about - would the ground be too wet to plant, or too muddy to let people out there in anything but boots?


Like he has done several times already on this journey, David reassured me that that time would be on our side, and things would take care of themselves.  There's an old saying, "Luck is where preparation meets opportunity" - maybe Hawskbill Hop Yards is going to be a case study for that one.

The field visit with VT.

One of several reasons we planned to meet on Friday morning was an expected meeting with some folks from Virginia Tech - since hops are still a nascent crop in Virginia, albeit a fast growing one with an increasing number of farms every year, this team wanted to come by and have a look at our set up.


We met for about an hour talking about the crop and about the experiences we're already hearing about from the other farmers, comparing hops to grapes as a crop - getting down to the science of the plants, and confirming or developing strategies for dealing with known threats, such as mildews and pests.

We're not shy about the fact that we're not going to be organic on this farm, it seems the crop is too susceptible to issues once you get to this scale (we'll have 800 plants on one acre this year), so we have a number of strategies all set for fungicides and pesticides which we will use at the appearance of these threats (although in the case of the mildews, we're going to be proactive).

A final look at our preparations - ready to plant!

Following a lunch break, I came back to the farm, and worked with David to mark out the rows.  We planned to put the plants on 3-foot centers; we ended up with 13 rows and we can have up to 66 plants per row.  One row was to be left empty bordering the two rows of the CTZ, to provide air flow on both sides of those, and we put the Goldings on the far west row so it has air as well (both are mildew susceptible).  

So with all the rows marked out, all we had left to do was double check our logistics, hope that heavy rains would hold off, and send out a final note about the field.

On Saturday, May 2, we'd put in the 800 plants and at last we'd be a hop yard!