Sunday, April 30, 2017

Welcome 2017

Winter has come and gone without leaving nearly as much devastation as the previous one. Our fig trees have recently started leafing out and setting new fruit without the need for excessive pruning. Last year everything above ground died. I'm hoping this bodes well for this year's hop harvest, last year's was disappointing.

After seeing no signs of the Willamette last year I have completely given up on seeing it again. The Columbus and Cascade both produced shoots once the cold started to break. I let them get a little wild before stepping in to tame them:


Time for some pruning and the bamboo poles and twine arranged in a helix:



This year I've decided to have the helices grow up in opposite directions in an extension of previous experiments in handedness.

When pruning I took extra care to eliminate bulls shoots in case they were a contributing factor to last year's poor harvest. Difficult to say with the combination of hard winter, brutal summer, and not cutting back the bull shoots. Time and the summer weather will tell.