Hop Farm, May 25 2009

Worked on the farm yesterday (May 24th): routine weeding, replanted the bottom section of chinook (Michelle), and rewired the top row. The productive chinook plants began flowering as expected. Two of the plants have been providing a full season of harvest (June-September) for the past 3 years. Rabbits have been chewing on the tips of several mounds but maintaing a bushy-base is working so far. It tends to buffer the center vines while "trimming" the excess that I would have done anyway. *Important tip: Once the tip is damaged, the vine will no longer continue to grow. Irrigation scheudle from last month continues to be sufficient considering the soil is ideally moist. Some nutrient (chicken shit) is still present from last year on most mounds (noticebale when digging up rebar stakes for reinforcing trellis wires). As always, there's more work to do in the upcoming weeks but not much more than routine maintenance and reinforcing the trellis wire for the middle and bottom rows. Michelle had my phone so no photo update this time :-(