Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> Thanks for that experienced information. Will you continue to grow for  
> your home-brew needs?

Absolutely!   Hops at the brew-stores is expensive .... way more now than in 
the recent past.  

Growing the hops is as close to foolproof as anything gets on the homestead.  
The vines die back to the ground each year and rise up new each season.  
Right now here they are abut six inches tall.  Provided a support they will 
grow 
20 feet straight up.  There are essentially no pests and no diseases.

The only bottleneck is the harvest.  Like so many things on a direct use 
farmstead, doing it for yourself is a good deal but doing it for money is  
... 
hmmm ... less of a good deal.  Like cheese (Grommet!  [if you don't have 
children, you have likely not been exposed to this reference]), Herself is 
the cheese 
maker and keeps us supplied with plenty of various kinds of cheese, 
especially 
motz for the pizzas and queso blanco for the rellenos.   But don't even 
mention making cheese to sell!  "Sure, it'll be $90  a pound, take it or 
leave it!  
I'm not going to this much trouble for anyone but my family!"

Like that, I can put away ten to a dozen pounds of hops without too much 
trouble and have more than enough to match the barley patch.  But the moment 
I try 
to sack them up and sell them, even at the current very high prices, I'd be 
lucky to get half of minimum wage.     </HTML>