Quick overview of the Project's goals

The goal of this 3-year project is to show that a traditionally "high maintenance" or "high-input" crop such as hops can be grown with less labor, infrastructure, machinery, and without any chemicals, fertilizers, or irrigation while also yielding a superior product, preventing soil erosion, and breaking atmospheric C02 and binding carbon back into the soil. It's already being done on some small farms for high-yielding corn (ex.  Mr. Gabe Brown, mentioned in The Soil Will Save Us by Kristin Ohlson - www.brownsranch.us/, also see "Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepard) which requires more nutrients than hops, so i figure it would work just as well. Plus, craft brewing is so popular right now, I figure word about better farming practices would spread quickly if there is something new and environmentally friendly hitting the market.

Thanks for reading - EHP

Seeds Arrived!

johnnyseeds.com

They also have great tools available on the site.  I scored a great pair of Bahco Pruners that look and feel like they will easily outlast my time on earth.

My Crew - Sandy the Shiba and Ivy my daughter

Plot, Trellis, Fence

Our Story So Far

Hello Friends!


I am playing catch-up with getting information to any fans and followers (Last time I checked I have exactly zero visitors to this blog).  It has been a busy time leading up to April 2017.  While setting up the Elgin Hops Project (should I call it the EHP? Give me some feedback on that guys, I think it sounds pretty slick) I am also full-time Dad to my 13 month-old, little Ivy, and still working while my wife is in school full-time working on her second career.  I will give you all (Notice how I write so hopefully!) a rundown of all that I have done leading up to Spring of Year 1.


February:


February 19th.  Ivy's 1st Birthday!


I built a simple split-rail fence in the backyard with some lattice so Dad won't have to constantly be wrangling Daughter and Doggie.  Got a super jump-start on digging post-holes due to the 60 degree weather that hit us in the middle of this month.


My seed catalogs came.  I was so excited I waited for the mail person every day for a week. I settled on Johnny's Seeds (johnnyseeds.com).  They had a nice selection of cover crops/food crops both hybrid and heirloom, and the price was reasonable for the variety they offer. I easily could have made my order earlier in the month online, but there was so much joy in waiting for the catalog that I think I will do it this way every year.  For my (roughly) 1800 sq ft that I had planned, I am hoping to grow enough to not only  improve the soil, but also to supply my family with enough produce to last the year- remember, poly-culture, lots of different plants in the same space working together to grow the soil community.  Sounds like a nice place to live when I say it like that.  Cost $200 - Free Shipping.


I needed straw, real bad.  I had no organic matter to put down initially to protect/build the soil, kill the grass, and hide the seeds from, well...seed...predators?  Sparrows, that's the word. (swivels around in chair "It was sparrows guys") So, I got a whole bunch of straw bales from Galusha Farm in Warrenville IL. $10 for a 55-65 lb bale.  Stick with uncut if you can, I used the "mulch" variety which I hope is ok in a pinch.  After year one I will be growing all of my own organic matter. So, one time purchase to kick things off.   If I had started this little venture last fall, I would have just ended it with lots of straw laid on top of my sod to weaken and kill the thick, luxurious, useless Kentucky bluegrass.  But I'm breaking the dial off at 11 and resorting to speeding up the process JUST THIS ONE TIME.


My seeds came!  I would never have thought 23000 seeds could fit in something smaller than a dog poop bag.  No point, just observation.  Lets move on.



March:


 Again, I cannot stress this enough, I am only digging this one and only time to speed up the start of my experiment.  If I kept working this same plot for the next 100 years, this would STILL be the only time I would dig. So I started digging, and digging, and digging some more.  I would Dad till she went down for a nap, then I would clean house and go dig.  She would wake up and I would Dad again, then she would nap and I would clean up and go dig.  This did not last long until I went and rented a tiller from the big box store for 2 hours.  Best $50 I ever spent.  All I had to do was tear up the sod.  As poor as my soil is I still don't want to till it too deeply, that's a job for my plants not for my back.


Me: 1
Grass:0

Time to plant. It is March 19, 2017  .


I completely ignore spacing and depth suggestions.  This was a planned decision, stop judging me.  I merely mix all of my spring cover crop seeds into a brown paper bag and go to town like I'm at a middle school dance and all I know how to do is the "dice throw".  Among the clovers, I also have other legumes such as mung beans and lentils, taproots such as daikon radish and early carrot, and root vegetables like beets and turnips.  Later in the season I will sow grasses, grains and wildflowers to add to the soil's organic mass and attract beneficial insects.


I spread straw over the whole mess.  Ivy, helps.  It's adorable, she loves to throw little fistfuls of straw, she is wearing a sun hat and losing her mind with laughter.



I plant the rest of my vegetables around the periphery of the straw.  Once again, I just scatter the seeds.  when Im throwing down 250 cauliflower seeds at a time, I'm not really concerned with how each seed turns out.  Something is gonna -effin grow, I just gotta get ready with a wheelbarrow and a pair of kitchen scissors when it comes time.

I put in my order of Hops rhizomes (root cuttings off of a mature Hops plant).  6 different varieties and 20 rhizomes in total: Cascade, Nugget, Chinook, Centennial, Mt. Hood, Willamette. I am thinking about grabbing a couple of Fuggles and Citra from a local supply store.


March 23rd  -  Supplies are all gathered.  time to put up the trellis.  My trellis is modified to reduce labor, use of heavy machinery that compacts the soil, and infrastructure cost.  I'm not planning on fulfilling a contract for Anheuser-Busch, I will be selling to small micro-breweries and home brewers.  Less cost of setting up, no cost of chemicals, no cost for irrigation all means I need less production per acre and I can make my hops healthier for me, you, and the soil.  It also means I can sell my hops locally for less money.  Money is a nice perk, but it is a terrible motivation.


March 24th - Trellis is up, twine is strung.  Waiting on my hops to get here.
 My trellis is two 4"x 4" x 10' cedar sunk 2.5' into the ground and strung through pole-top eye bolts with a single steel wire cable (100+lb load bearing) measuring 30 ft wide between the two poles.  Wire is secured with driven steel spikes 3' long into the ground 3-4 feet out from the base of each pole.  The twine will run diagonally 20' to the ground on either side of the wire.  The end result should look like a long tent when the hops are fully grown.  Ill have to back this up with pictures but I hope you all get an idea.


I am writing this post as of March 25th, 2017. Send me your feedback.  I would love to hear from you.  Contact Me at elginhopsproject@gmail.com



Currently working on an Instagram account and LinkedIn, should have them up as soon as I finish planting.



Thanks for reading
-EHP

Welcome Friends!

Hi folks, and welcome to the Elgin Hops Project!

My name is Robert and this is my 3-year mission to establish a method of cultivating bitter and aromatic hops in the backyard of my Elgin, IL home.  I am using holistic management practices which are centered around a few basic principles:

1. No tilling, cultivation or weeding.  Weeds are fine, they exist for a reason.  They are the earth's way of saying it doesn't like to be naked.  Naked soil is unhappy soil.  Here I make my one and only concession, in order to get a head-start this spring, I had to turn over my sod.  This will be the one and only time I turn my soil or disrupt it in any way.
2. Cover crops or "Green Fertilizer".  I will be planting a thick poly-culture of cover crops and vegetables among the Hops Rhizomes.  This is intended to fix nitrogen into the soil and provide dense organic matter for my soil community friends, bacteria, nematodes, fungi and worms.  Thick cover cropping also helps to attract beneficial insects, crowd out weeds, and strengthen the surrounding plant community.
3. No chemicals - Ever.  No Chemicals...once again...No Chemicals.  No chemical fertilizer. No Pesticides.  No Fungicides.  No Herbicides.  No -cides of any kind. Not even so-called "organic" chemicals.  That's silly, why would anyone want that in their beer ...lets move on.   
4. Working with and caring for grazing animals.   In a perfect world, the fine city of Elgin, IL would allow me to keep and raise a variety of small farm animals to help my farm plot thrive.  However; many people consider them somewhat uncivilized and many urban areas do not allow them withing the city limits.  I plan on keeping angora rabbits in the near future.  For rabbit updates, more details on how keeping and caring for some really fun critters can improve soil quality; read more of my stuff, you'll love it I promise.

This is my experiment, and I want to share it with you.  Whether you love local food, great beer, homebrewing, have a passion for environmental activism, or got here by mistake, I want to include you in this weird journey of mine.  I want to hear from you, connect with you, and one day help give you a healthier beer for a healthier world.

A Sincere Thanks,

EHP