barley

An add on to my hops experiment - i started growing barley. My friend gordon (coworker and fellow homebrewer) bought some barley seed this year from North Dakota. I believe it is six row for big beer brewing purposes, but I'll have to check on that. Anywho - he had some extra seed so I scratched up a spot near my driveway.

I planted the seed on May 7th (Day 0) and it came up within a week.
The plot is roughly 2' x 4'. Hoping to get enough to use for steeping in 1 or 2 batches. Not at all sure how the whole picking / malting / kilning process is going to go, but it should be fun trying.

Day 6

Day 15

Day 19

hops - week 6

the experiment continues:
Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009
1 bines / 5' in length

Mt. Hood - planted in ground May 2008

3 bines / 5'-7' in length

notes: some sort of blight has hit this plant, and i've been forced to prune several leaves.

online research suggest a virus that may have come with the plant from the beginning. a virus won't kill the plant; however there is nothing that can be done to remedy the plant and it will have lower production.

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009
3 bines / 1' - 3' in length

hops - week 4

The experiment continues:


Mt. Hood - planted in ground May 2008
3 bines / 2'-4.5' in length
notes: trimmed the other damaged bine
leaves are starting to yellow towards the top - think it is time for some fertilizer

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009

5 bines / 0.5" - 1' in length

notes: taking off and growing fast

lots of leaves througout

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009
1 bines / 2.7' in length
notes: lost the two little bines - just seemed to rot away at their top
main bine still going strong although it has definitely slowed
probably ready for some fertilizer here too

bike2work week

FYI - this is national bike2work week. If you didn't ride today you have 4 more days to figure out a route and commute!

trellises

I built 2 trellises for my hops experiment this year.


The first trellis was fairly simple. It consists of a relatively heavy gage 13' long cable running from the hop's pot to the ceiling at my office. The heavier-than-needed cable was intended to give a nice rough surface for the plant to grab onto, while providing a cleaner look than say a jute rope. I sunk an eye-bolt into the pot for the base. I then popped out a tile from the drop-ceiling and hooked the cable to one of the metal channels. The cable was angled to be out of the way, but still get as much sun as possible from the windows.

The second trellis was a little more complex. It consists of 2 - 4"x4" posts (6' and 12' long), 2 - post spikes (24" and 30"), 2 - 24" long soil anchors, 5 - eye screws, 1 - turnbuckle, and some cabling and jute rope.


I went with the post spikes because 1) I figured they were less permanent than concrete and we're eventually going to be building a garage back there and 2) to give my posts a little extra length. I installed the two spikes such that the 6' post / 24" spike was at the surface, and the 12' post / 30" spike was buried and extra 1' for extra stability.

Placement of the posts and the anchors was pretty much based on how much space I had. I managed to get them all about 4' apart. I installed the five eye screws into the posts, 2 on either side of each post 6' from the ground, and 1 on the inside and top of the 12' post. I then ran the angled cable (guy wire) from the 6'-high-eyes to the anchors, getting them as tight as possible. Last I ran the cable connecting the two posts and used a turnbuckle to tighten them all up.

The final step was to run jute rope from stakes in the ground up to the 6' post. I plan to run another jute rope from the 6' post up to the 12'-high-eye with plenty of slack on the other side so that I can raise and lower the line.

So far so good. The system seems pretty stable. The 12' post has just a little bit of a wobble. I figure I might just bolt an extra support to the cinder block by my driveway. An other approach would be to add an extra guy wire and set them up in a triangle - but I'd rather not go this route for space reasons.

Happy National Homebrew Day

Actually, I should say Happy Belated National Homebrew Day - it was last saturday the 2nd. To celebrate I devoted pretty much my whole weekend to homebrew. Saturday I made a double batch (technically 2 separate batches). My brother-in-law is getting married in June and I am providing a wheat and a brown ale for the festivities.

Sunday I built a trellis for my outdoor hops. Basically it consists of two 4"x4" posts (6' and 12'). I sorta went overboard on this one - so much so that I'm going wait to describe its construction for another post.

hops - week 3

The experiment continues:


Mt. Hood - planted in ground May 2008
3 bines / 2'-3' in length
notes: trimmed and trained 3 bines
longest bine was crimped so I had to cut it
realized after trimming that 1 of the 3 bines I saved was dammaged
noticed a little one sprouting (saved it for backup)

Cascade - planted in outdoor container 12 April 2009
5 bines / just sprouted - 5" in length
notes: 4 sets of leaves on longest bine
unlike the nugget, it appears to be putting it's energy towards leaves rather than length

Nugget - planted in indoor container 13 April 2009
3 bines / 1" - >2' in length
notes: trained it last wednesday
longest bine going strong
leaf size hasn't increased much since last week