A Certified Naturally Grown Farm - Saint Marys, Pennsylvania
There’s Got To Be Another Way!
For quite some time to come, Memorial Day 2018 will in my mind bring back memories of heat, humidity and grass clippings galore!
This day’s work was a back and forth mix of hand weeding directly around the hops to clear a foot circumference and then returning with the weed whacker and safely clear the grass, clover and weeds that have erupted so far this Spring between the plants. Yes…this happens every year as we don’t spray for weed control nor will we ever. I’m not complaining per se, rather realizing more and more that given the jump we’d made 2 years ago from 30 to 400+ hops with just myself, and at times family and friends helping, is not cutting it (pun intended).
To have a productive hopyard of this size typically requires a more mechanized approach, and/or a larger paid staff in this critical time of year getting the yard off to a good start. I see the yards of other Farms we follow on social media, either in our region or in Michigan and New York, and their yards’ progression at this time of year seems light years ahead of ours. Most larger yards do not keep a ground cover in the alleys as we do. At present we have a clover mix there that was present in the field before we planted the new hopyard. The intent was to keep the ground covered and feed nutrients to the nearby plants. These larger yards I reference will typically plow the lanes every Spring, peeling a layer of soil away from the hops crowns, amending that soil and then plowing that “juiced-up” soil back against the hop hills.
So there are changes we are noodling for after we wrap this season’s harvest up. These include using sheet mulching techniques in the beds themselves to cut down on the weeds which will also assist in retaining the soil moisture. Along with a proper mulch bed on top, this will slowly feed nutrients to the plants and help break down our heavy clay soils. Another change would be to transplant the hops from in between the poles into what are now the alleys and attempt the mechanical approach I’d mentioned above. However instead of leaving the soil uncovered, we’re considering putting in a cover crop to maintain the soil integrity and organically add nutrients back. More to come on which approach we’ll seek.
At the end of the day, we were able to weed almost all the beds. There are a few sections to finish up before we string the hops hopefully the first weekend in June. At the very least, the end of the day in the yard requires a trip back to the house through one of my favorite sections….a drive down the “Old Keystone Road”.
“Winter Is ….” OK, Knock It Off!
For those not endeared to the television series “Game of Thrones”, today’s blog title may not make sense. The full statement is “Winter Is Coming” and it’s a reference to a frozen, zombie-like enemy to the heroes of the series. The phrase has now woven its’ way into pop culture and social media in reference to the actual season arriving. Well this year in our part of the country, it came late and still seems to be here even 3 weeks into Spring.
Even though it’s technically been a mild Winter, the back and forth nature of it paired with these late season snowfalls have made it impossible to get into the yards to get anything prepped. While we’d love to have the coir hung and ready, the ground is supremely wet and will easily get torn up between the tractor and the hops platform trailer. I’ve considered rigging a ladder to a platform sitting atop my Father-in-law’s truck, however even that would cause compaction and overall…just doesn’t sound like a particularly smart idea. 😉
I am also leery of uncovering the hops from beneath the snowpack and the straw mulch we laid down last Fall as even if there are crowns to cut (“crowned”), my fear is the cold will damage them. So we are in a holding pattern of sorts. I was able to get the tractor fired up and ready for action however. Took about three tries but once it was going, it was like it’d been running all Winter long. We love our IH674!
Stretching the legs of the IH674 after a long Winter nap from Joshua Brock on Vimeo.
It’s looking like Spring…actually Summer…weather is on the way as we’re seeing 70 degrees by the weekend. Will it stay? Probably not, however it’ll be nice to break the chain of miserable weather we’ve had and begin to dry things out.
Time For Bed
While technically not totally finished for the 2017, the majority of the projects have been wrapped up. Harvest, processing and drying went fairly well. We’re still waiting on the new yard to really set their roots and get going. This was their first year in the ground for a full growing season and we’ve taken extra care the last few months since harvest to give them a good head start on 2018.
Both yards have had some rich mushroom compost added in a circumference near but not directly on the crowns. This will encourage the roots to stretch out and down for those nutrients as they work into the soil, building the base for a stronger root system as well as the health of the plant, hops and leaves in 2018. We then covered each crown with a few inches of straw to protect them from the Winter winds, ice and snow. The insulation will also give them a good start in the next season to help them out compete the weeds.
Soon we’ll be putting “Big Red”, our IH674 tractor, to bed for the Winter as well. We could run it all year long, however only being up at the Farm one day a week, it makes more sense to prep it for a long Winter’s rest. Some day we might consider adding a plow or even a rear-mounted PTO snow blower to help with snow removal, but that’s for a different day. As such, in a week or so we’ll top off the diesel tank, pull the battery and wrap the tractor to protect it from the elements. We did discover a very small leak as the fuel line comes into the injection pump and fortunately it’ll most likely just need a new set of washers…let’s hope! I do truly love learning more and more about the tractor, the engine and transmission. All of it however it can be frustrating when I have bits and pieces of knowledge about what could be wrong and how to properly fix them.
Once the small hopyard was finished, I then decided it was time to dismantle the hops platform. Now this is probably one of those tasks I should have someone else assisting me with as it involves heights, heavy pieces of metal and wood…oh yeah, and wind and ice! Speaking to my brother over the phone as he was working down at the house, he did offer to come up and assist however I hadn’t made the final decision to take apart the platform and heck…I put it up and took it down on my own last year so, hey, how bad could it be?!
Well…I got the upper protection railings removed easily and dropped those to the ground below. It’s amazing how much different it feels to be on top of that platform just moments after the railing is no longer there. It’s like the ground below is trying to pull me off the platform to the ground some 16′ feet below. 16′ isn’t “terribly high”, however I am no longer “terribly young” and falling to the ground or bouncing off the deck of the platform below would not be ideal for anyone. I no sooner got the railings off and made my way down the ladder to start the next level and WHOOM…the ladder slipped backwards on the deck below due to ice that had formed. I didn’t fall far as the ladder came to rest on the next level down about 6′ below, but it caught my breath lets just say that. I’ve fallen enough climbing to date that I know to stop everything, make sure nothing else is about to give way, and took a good minute to check out how I was feeling and to check myself out for bumps, bruises or breaks. Yowza…should’ve taken Mike up on his offer 😉
I then proceeded to screw in a footer at the base of the ladder, something I’ve been thinking about all season long, so that it couldn’t happen again. I’ll also be securing the top of the ladder to the scaffold frame as well. During the season, someone’s always at the base of the ladder securing it. Anyway just know…that was the first and last time a ladder slipping will happen on that decking!
With the adrenaline subsided, I continued to slowly and safely dismantle the remainder of the platform. Again, next year it’ll be a two-person job regardless. The next trip up, I’ll be moving the platform and scaffolding sections down to the barn where they’ll be covered from the elements. We’ll also then be covering the wheels on the trailer to help extend the life of those tires.
All in all a pretty productive day. Weather was what I recall as classic November from my childhood…some snow, cold winds and gray skies. It was heartening to see and work in actually given the way Winters have been warming the last decade or so. Our Davis Vantage Vue weather unit has been a God-send to keep a realtime status of changing weather conditions up at the Farm since I’m 90-minutes away in State College the other six days of the week. It’s also giving us great historical information. You can find it here if you’re ever curious of the weather up that way.
Winter has arrived in the hopyards! from Joshua Brock on Vimeo.
“Winter Is Coming!”
Truly, Winter is coming and today it felt like it was almost upon us!
Temperatures are still in the average realm for this time of year, however the winds have picked up greatly. The windspeeds are close to what I’ve felt walking these fields in late December and early January.
Wind in the hopyard from Joshua Brock on Vimeo.
I actually totally enjoy the weather this time of year…reminds me of being in the mountains. Having been almost blown off my feet many times on peaks in Colorado and the Adirondacks, catching small glimpse of those moments always brings a smile to my face. As such, the wind this day was a welcome friend.
The day began with…wait for it..WEEDING…by hand, for hours at a clip! Ah the life of a Certified Naturally Grown farmer! I had one row I wanted to finish weeding and weed whacking this day, as I knew I wouldn’t have time for the very final one. I’ll save that for next week. As the hops bines have shrunken to almost infinitesimal heights since harvest on top of now being buried in a plethora of healthy weeds, making sure to weed everything BUT the hops was a challenge. I clear about 2’ around the hop crown and work to break up the soil surrounding it. I then cover the crowns with some additional soil so as to protect and insulate them during the cold and icy Winter months that will follow.
Once I had a full row weeded by hand, I then returned with the weed whacker and homemade shield. The shield is a 2’ tall section of HVAC duct that I secured to a long handle. I place the shield over the hop to protect it as I weed whack all the standing growth in between each hill. Earlier in the process, my Dad and I would then follow with a flame weeding. However at this point in the season, the wind is always blowing, much too hard to risk having a stray ember catch a portion of the field on fire. We’ll revisit the flame weeding in the Spring.
Just as I was finishing the weed whacking, I got a text from our local landscaper. We’d been in touch about him picking up and delivering a load of mushroom compost from our the composting facility. He showed up right on time and we got the load dumped in our new composting/mulch area near the large hopyard. I then sped back down to the barn, parked the car and got the trailer cart hooked up to the golf cart and headed back up to the hopyard to begin spreading the compost.
It seems odd to some to be using a golf cart for this type of work, but honestly it works quite well. No gas and oil to worry about, we always charge it at the end of the day. Simple controls, has a full set of lights, a hitch to pull the trailer and some extra room for tools. Now we’re not pulling a ton of compost, but for what we are working with, it does the job really well! I was able to load up two carts full and spread it around the hops crowns. Yup around, not on. We spread it about a 1’ or more in a circle around each crown. The idea is as the nutrients soak into the soal, the roots of the hops will then seek out those nutrients by spreading out. This increases their length and depth and will help the hops mature and grow stronger.
I worked in the wind and the rain right after it turned dusk, then headed back down to the barn as I still had tools and equipment to clean and put away. It’s a good habit I learned from my Dad and Grandfather and really try and stick to it every single work day. Once everything was back in it’s place and the barn locked back up, it was time for that familiar hour and a half drive back to State College.
