Picking hops from the garden
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- Category: Blog Entries
- Published on Friday, 30 September 2011 00:00
- Written by Alex Vokes
- Hits: 76
It's September 2011 and my hops in the garden are ready to pick. I've been growing my own hops for a couple of years now up a rickety bamboo construction of my own design. I've heard that it's in the third year of planting that hops really start to bear fruit so I got my fingers crossed for a large crop! Hops are annual plants and die back to the root each year, so they have to struggle to occupy enough space to deploy their leaves in order to make enough food to grow healthy cones. Three years ago I planted roots from the Fuggles, Goldings and Target varieties and they've certainly taken the back garden in their stride. The first year I harvested around 20 hop cones which made me feel like it wasn't really worth the effort, but this year the back garden is literally dangling with clusters of hops. Last year I think I picked my hops too late in the season and they'd already started to go brown, so this year I was determined to get a green crop.
Hop picking is remarkably relaxing and once I'd started the actions became automatic. I've been watching the progress of my plants quite carefully over the last couple of months and notice that a good deal of wildlife has set up shop in amongst the stems. The whole area seems to be full of spiders and ladybirds and all sorts of other creepy crawlies. This was in the back of my mind as I was tearing down some parts of the plant as some of the spiders are whoppers. At the end of the day I was quite surprised at the volume I'd managed to collect - a whole washing basket full. The smell was amazing and my hands were almost black from all the hop oils they'd absorbed.
The next step is to dry the hops to reduce their water content. I normally tip out the hops onto a double bedsheet in the summerhouse at the end of the garden. I apply heat via two small electric heaters that blow hot air over the cones and during the next couple of days the hops will dry and feel more papery. The final step is to vacuum pack them and place them in a dark sealed container. Hopefully this lot will help make some great beers in the coming year :)
