SkiB wrote:[color=blue]
> "Derric" <derric1961@removethis.yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:slrncvl84m.nj8.derric1961@bhm29.hiwaay.net...
>[color=green][color=darkred]
>>>... I'd like to find more information about how
>>>one might go about growing their own hops-- ...[/color]
>>
>>Start over at: [url]http://www.freshops.com/[/url]
>>They have a pretty good "Hop Growing" section and you
>>can buy from them in the spring.[/color]
>
>
> Thanks, Derric. Indeed-- lots of good info there.
>
> BTW, cite below is from an interesting article I came upon which painted a
> pretty bleak picture for anyone contemplating playing around with hops as
> any kind of realistic cash crop. <g>
>
> Published 10/31/04
>
> ... Last week, the Oregon distributor, Freshops, was selling regular
> varieties of hops at the retail price of 63 cents an ounce. Premium hops
> were retailing for 75 cents an ounce.
> That means that Perry's five pounds would cost today between $50 and $60,
> depending on the quality, which boils down to between $2.10 and $2.50 per
> man hour and far below the minimum wage level of $5.15 per hour.
>
> To pick five pounds in Vermont with labor paid minimum wage would cost
> almost $124, or twice the premium retail price delivered from Oregon.
>
> Wilson doesn't grow and harvest his hops at the Norwich Inn for profit, or
> necessarily to improve the quality of his beer. He does it for fun.
>
> "It's really fun to watch them grow. They grow about a foot a day. That's
> pretty neat."
>
> [url]http://www.vnews.com/10312004/2037563.htm[/url]
>
>[/color]
I live in Yakima,WA., a hop-growing region, and the hop farmers seem to
be getting by somehow. They set up a trellis of what look like
half-height telephone poles strung together with steel cable, and every
year they hang lengths of twine from that cable. The hop vines grow up
the twine and are harvested by cutting the twine down into a truck,
hauling it to the processing building and tossing the whole pile into a
machine that shakes the flower-heads off.
It's a little more man-hour intensive than growing potatoes, but five
pounds of potatoes won't bring you $50-60.

For the small amount of hops a home brewer would use, the cost would
mostly be the time you spend puttering around in the garden.

Karl S.
--
And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.
Matthew 20:27 KJV