michiganhops.blogspot.com
Michigan Hops Farm: June 2012
http://michiganhops.blogspot.com/2012_06_01_archive.html
Sunday, June 24, 2012. Black Creek Hops gets a "sheep". After the hops were all trained on their new strings it was time think about managing all of that unwanted vegetative material growing next to the hops bines. Our field mower does a nice job of mowing down the cover crop between the rows but does not get close enough to the hops plants. Baahhhhh.where's the hops? You have to admit, they are pretty cute. After much deliberation, we decided to invest. Shepherding isn't too demanding either. The answer...
michiganhops.blogspot.com
Michigan Hops Farm: July 2011
http://michiganhops.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html
Thursday, July 14, 2011. Hops Grow Amazingly Fast. Hops is a perennial plant which dies back to the bare ground each winter, sends out shoots in early spring and grows like crazy until mid summer here in the northern midwest. It is time to take a break from construction of the hopyard to chronicle the growth of our 2nd year hops plants thus far this growing season. April 9: The first signs of life. The purple shoot towards the center of the picture is a new shoot. Three short months yields very tall resu...
michiganhops.blogspot.com
Michigan Hops Farm: July 2010
http://michiganhops.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html
Tuesday, July 20, 2010. Hot dry weather, thirsty plants. July 15, 2010 With no measurable rainfall in over 2 weeks, it was time to install an irrigation system for our plants. The closest running water source is half a mile away, leaving us no choice but to haul water out to the plot. But that is not enough. While we are absent on the weekdays, the hops still need water to meet their growing needs. The little yellow fluff ball at the center of this picture is the beginnings of a hop flower! July 8, 2010.
michiganhops.blogspot.com
Michigan Hops Farm: June 2011
http://michiganhops.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html
Monday, June 27, 2011. Hops Poles Must Be Planted - Now. Mid June is already here and the poles are ready to be planted. Here they lie next to their designated holes. Our help has arrived. Our good friends Diana and Jerry came willing and smiling. Hope they are still smiling tomorrow. Additional help showed up.Howie and Amber helped to plant more of the mighty posts. The clay from 3 ft. below the surface was soooo difficult to tamp down around the poles once they were set in the holes. Oh and just for ev...
michiganhops.blogspot.com
Michigan Hops Farm: Hops Happenings at Black Creek Hops
http://michiganhops.blogspot.com/2012/07/hops-happenings-at-black-creek-hops.html
Friday, July 27, 2012. Hops Happenings at Black Creek Hops. The 2012 growing season has proven itself to be quite a challenging one. I keep wistfully thinking back to the 2009 and 2010 growing seasons (our first ones) where the rains came at perfect intervals and the temperatures were moderate the entire summer. Everything was easy, our first year hops produced beautiful cones. We were lulled into thinking that hops were such an easy crop to grow. Burrs are forming on the Perle and Hallertau. Lupulin gla...
michiganhops.blogspot.com
Michigan Hops Farm: September 2011
http://michiganhops.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html
Monday, September 26, 2011. Hops are prone to Japanese Beetle attacks. In Mid July, I noticed a few of the 1st year plants had japanese beetles crawling on them. I had heard of Japanese beetle traps. They are very effective according to our farm neighbors. We also hung one way up on the top of the trellis for the 2nd year plants. Even though there wasn't huge evidence of Japanese beetle presence here we thought we should protect the bines which were just beginning to flower. The beetles also ate many of ...
michiganhops.blogspot.com
Michigan Hops Farm: April 2013
http://michiganhops.blogspot.com/2013_04_01_archive.html
Thursday, April 25, 2013. Wolf Harvester arrives at Michigan Hops Farm. One day in late July of 2012 all of the "stars aligned in the universe" for our hops farm in west Michigan. Our long awaited Wolf harvester was set to arrive at our farm at 9 am on a Saturday. The truck arrived at 9 am. Our good friends just happened to be visiting that weekend and were willing to help us. Our cement contractor volunteered his services and equipment to assist in unloading the harvester. It was not raining. The top pi...
michiganhops.blogspot.com
Michigan Hops Farm: January 2012
http://michiganhops.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html
Saturday, January 7, 2012. Michigan Hops Yard in the Fall. October arrived and there was still a lot of work to do in the hops yard after the harvest. Howard installed a much needed irrigation sytem. Lots of planning and calculating went into the design. This system will provide water to our existing 1 acre hop yard and meet the watering needs of our future expansion yard. Small but trusty, my Scott's spreader gave me a workout walking up and down the aisles of poles spreading the seeds.
michiganhops.blogspot.com
Michigan Hops Farm: Michigan Hops Farm - Weekend Warriors go at it again
http://michiganhops.blogspot.com/2012/04/michigan-hops-farm-weekend-warriors-go.html
Saturday, April 28, 2012. Michigan Hops Farm - Weekend Warriors go at it again. This last weekend of April, our family (4 kids) all came home. It was a good time to get some labor intensive tasks done in the hop yard. Our daughters are taking their first ride up in the scissor lift. Laura described the experience like a "junky carnival ride" after hearing the lift squeak and feeling a swaying motion when the wind caused the basket to sway. Stephanie learns to drive the tractor. Even though it looks like ...
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT