One thing we didn't exactly remember was how far away Pasco is from Roslyn. For some reason, we thought it was just past Yakima, so about an hour or so away. Not quite. It's 2.5 hours one-way. But, we decided we'd make a day of it and check out the sights along the way. One weird roadside stop was the Teapot Dome Historical Site in Zillah, WA. Most of our stops involved restrooms and this one was no different except the fact that it's a pretty scenic little stop with some history involving a scandal, which I won't go into here. But, needless to say, any highway rest stop with a photo-worthy shot not involving the toilets is a good one.
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.
I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!
Monday, April 4, 2022
Pasco Flea Market and first of the season asparagus!
One thing we didn't exactly remember was how far away Pasco is from Roslyn. For some reason, we thought it was just past Yakima, so about an hour or so away. Not quite. It's 2.5 hours one-way. But, we decided we'd make a day of it and check out the sights along the way. One weird roadside stop was the Teapot Dome Historical Site in Zillah, WA. Most of our stops involved restrooms and this one was no different except the fact that it's a pretty scenic little stop with some history involving a scandal, which I won't go into here. But, needless to say, any highway rest stop with a photo-worthy shot not involving the toilets is a good one.
Sunday, April 3, 2022
Where have I been?
Wow! I can't believe it's been over two years since I've posted here, but I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone too much. I've only posted a couple times on Facebook in the intervening time and I've been mostly laying low during this whole pandemic business.
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Biking in the Teanaway |
Second, I picked up a new hobby since moving out here that takes up a lot of my time and, frankly, my energy. I've been doing a tremendous amount of gravel biking in the area during the warm months and a similar amount of bike training indoors during the cold months. I really wanted to test and see how much I could gain in power focusing on it and so that didn't leave much energy for large garden projects.
This year I want to have more balance. Still gravel biking, but also homesteading. And that's why I'm posting again. History has shown that I tend to pop on to my blog and post just as fast as I pop back off. So, I can't really promise anything. But if people are interested in reading what goofy things I'm up to, I'm happy to write them up!
We're having an incredibly slow start to the growing season here, more so than usual. This winter we had a tremendous amount of snow fall in January and not much after that. Of course, now that I'm gunning to start growing we are expecting a snow storm again. Such is mountain life. So, I'm using the time to assess any damage from our record breaking snow, clean up the garden, start prepping beds and do some planning. And I've got a few other crazy things up my sleeve.I was thinking of just posting on my Facebook page, but every time I want to explain what I'm doing, the posts get too long and I don't want to cut it short or torture people on social media with overly lengthy posts!
Anyway, if anyone is still out there reading, let me know!
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Growing an All You Can Eat Salad Bar
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So much extra space on my double lot! |
My two kids and I didn't need a house that big and I'd rather live in a smaller house on more usable land. Living in such an expensive area with horrible traffic and homelessness was becoming less appealing. And, since both my kids were homeschooling and I (up until the lay off) was telecommuting, I couldn't justify staying in Seattle any longer.
Since we've moved, my daughter started attending the local alternative high school and my son started his first job working in a local restaurant and graduates high school this spring. I walked away from the tech world and have been doing some part-time work in town for the bookstore/coffee shop. Both my son and I walk to work - I think I've filled up my gas tank three times since we moved here. The change in all of us has been quite huge given the strain that we've lived under for so many years, dealing with the specter of cancer. I don't believe we would have thrived as much if we continued living in Seattle.
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Berry and asparagus patch |
This last week we started building out the beds and I purchased my favorite varietals of thornless raspberries and blackberries and some blueberries. I also picked up some purple asparagus and a number of different potato seed. My seed stock is complete and my biggest challenges at this point are:
1. Learning the new environment, microclimates in my yard and growing season (it's super short)
2. Dealing with different pests (bug, bird and mammalian)
3. Figuring out what grows well here and what doesn't (I'll have some experimental garden sections going)
4. Building out the rest of the garden
5. Determining how much coal in your garden beds is a bad thing (we live in an old coal mining town)
I'll keep trying to post on what we're doing and building. I'm hoping to address the coronavirus aspect of things in a near future post, especially given the fact we live in a state with things shutting down quickly. I'm dusting off my Adapting in Place hat and will share what we're doing along those lines as well.
It's hard to see what's going on in the pictures - I'll be posting more close up ones so you can tell what I'm doing a little better. I generally post more stuff on Facebook and Instagram than I do here, but I'll try to be more consistent.
Monday, December 16, 2019
Starting a community composting and recycling company
I mentioned in a previous post, Going Zero Waste, that, since moving to a different town, I've been frustrated by the lack of recycling and municipal composting options. For starters, there's no curbside recycling pickup. This is manageable because the transfer station for recycling drop off is relatively close to my house. The downside is that the recycling options are fairly abysmal - meaning, there's no paper, glass or plastic recycling (except soda bottles).
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Time to Study! |
What's a poor environmentalist to do under such circumstances? Well, if you're a Crunchy Chicken, you start your own community Food Waste Composting and Recycling company! We're very much in the early days, but I'll be chronicling what we're up to.
How did this start?
One of my neighbors, Brian, saw my post on feeding my downed apples to my friend's pigs and reached out to me to discuss what work he was doing in the community with harvesting fruit for local food banks and what to do with food waste. We spent a lot of time discussing the above mentioned issues and, over the last month, have started planning and framing out a business plan. We're also meeting with quite a number of members of the community who are very interested and want to participate in some capacity, either by using our services, or helping us with their ideas.
The plan
Right now, we're looking into several different sites. One for a drop-off demonstration food waste composting site and the second for a much larger composting operation. We're also researching our options for providing recycling pickup to residents.
At this point, we're initially planning on offering curbside food waste pickup to residents of Roslyn for a monthly fee, with the option of receiving back finished compost. There's also the option for food waste drop-off at the demonstration site for those outside our service area. In the future, the plan is to sell compost at the local farmers market as well as at a local retailer.
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"Fruit Waste to Farms" |
I'd much rather have food get consumed by animals first, with composting food scraps second. I'm calling it our "Fruit Waste to Farms" program and would love to have participants in the program who are donating their fruit receive eggs or meat as part of the service.
Finally, we'd like to offer glass recycling pickup while we are at it. I'm working with my contacts in Solid Waste for becoming a glass recycling supplier, but that plan is further out. Ideally, we'd also like to provide recycling pickup options while we're picking up in the neighborhood. And, eventually, pickup by bicycle or a used cooking oil biofuel truck is on the horizon.
What's next?
Like I said, we're still very much in the planning stage and getting our ideas and services lined up. We're hoping to be offering services starting in February of 2020. There's a lot of work to be done, but I'll be keeping you posted on the nitty gritty here.
If you want to follow our Facebook page, you can do so here at SwiftCycle Composting Company.
Saturday, November 30, 2019
Grieving through the holidays
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Hank's guitars standing watch |
We didn't put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, which was our tradition. Nobody could bear the thought of going through the 28+ years of Christmas ornaments we had collected together. Instead, I semi-decorated a large tropical palm tree with non-Christmasy lights and called it good. It felt festive without the emotional drain. And for Christmas, well, the kids got gifts throughout December rather than a Christmas morning extravaganza. It would be too heartrendingly obvious that someone was missing.
I wanted things to be different this year. New house, new community. We celebrated the 20+ kids that came to our house for Halloween and, for Thanksgiving, had family and new neighbors over for a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Again, it was perfect. My daughter remarked the day after that she had a really great time but couldn't shake the feeling that it didn't feel like Thanksgiving. Then it dawned on her that it didn't feel like Thanksgiving because something was missing, her Dad was missing.
Yesterday, I put up the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, as was our family tradition. I didn't realize how incredibly hard that was going to be. We've had this fake tree since 2007, the year my late husband was diagnosed with cancer. The year I started this blog. He was too sick to help carry a real tree that year, so we bought a floor model artificial Christmas tree and have used it sporadically since then, depending on how sick he was.
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Stein Haus Pub! |
Christmas hadn't been "normal" around our house for years. My late husband was in the hospital from Thanksgiving to New Years in 2016, on one of his many horrific brushes with death. That was the one and only time my daughter visited him during his hospital stays. One which she regrets - it was just too hard to see him so sick, so depressed and in a unit where people went in, but generally didn't come back out. And, it was Christmas. He should have been at home.
In 2017, he was home but enduring another round of illness from his stem cell transplant and, shortly after, went blind as the stem cells attacked his eyes. He really never recovered from that post-transplant graft in 2016. After that, we all just muddled along, enduring the massive ups-and-downs from his cancer, the treatments, the effects on his body and waiting for the inevitable.
You really don't recognize how much stress you're under while you're in it. What I call "Cancer PTSD" is real and we're all slowly coming out of that, but it will take years. You never know when grief, mourning and loss will hit you as it did while I was putting the garland on the tree. Holidays will always be hard. My kids will always be grieving the fact their father is gone. I'm hoping that, at least, moving forward with our family traditions and starting new ones will help us all heal.
Monday, November 11, 2019
Community service and litter pick up
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Sunday garbage walk |
So, every other Sunday (or thereabouts) when we head out on our walk with the dogs, we pick up all the garbage we run across. Dan mostly does all the picking up (rather than me) because he has an inordinate amount of energy and a much less finicky back than I do.
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Up all night to get lucky |
Case in point was the pair of underwear we found in the alley behind the main street restaurants. Someone either had a lucky or very unlucky Saturday night!
It's actually quite amazing what a huge difference spending an hour picking up garbage in a small town can make. Dan used to do the same thing in the Ballard area of Seattle, but it hardly made a dent. Which is why doing it here is so satisfying especially since it takes so little effort.
He gets all the credit for this! I'm really just along for the ride, pointing out what I spot and providing some encouragement (although I'm the one who needs it when faced by angry dogs in alleyways). But I do get the satisfaction of helping keep our small town looking well cared by pitching in and helping as a supplement to what the city does to keep it clean!
Monday, November 4, 2019
Seasonal Living: Finishing the pigs
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Apple snack! |
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Apples and pumpkins |
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Doe eating apples |
Friday, November 1, 2019
Natural flooring - no chemicals needed! Part 2
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Original carpeting (and staging) |
More carpeting? No, I'm not a fan of carpet. But, that wasn't the only reason I pulled out the carpet in my bedroom upstairs in the first place. The house had been used as a VRBO rental for a number of years and the carpet and pad not only had the distinct smell of dog pee, but the visual evidence as well. We cleaned the plywood as best we could and let it air out in the late August heat in preparation for replacing the flooring.
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Cork samples |
I had been looking into a variety of other "wood" flooring options, some of them not so eco-friendly, but after spending some time in Greenhome, I made the decision to use only as natural and non-offgassing products in my house as possible. My Non-Toxic Avenger neurons went all tingly and I was absolutely determined to not make any compromises with what I was choosing. I was totally pumped!
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Bonus room |
Installation was a little challenging. It really took two people to install - one holding up the previous board and the other tapping in the next board. It certainly wasn't nearly as easy as other click-lock type flooring systems. I'm not going to understate it - there was a ton of frustration putting it in. But, we managed to install the entire upstairs bedroom and bonus room plus the bathroom.
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Tiny bath |
I'm super pleased with how the flooring turned out. Honestly, we almost gave up after the first couple of hours, but we managed to figure out how to install it, working as a team. Yay team! The cork gives the room a wonderful warmth to the floor, which is super important now that temperatures are in the 20s/30s. It is so soft to walk on, yet still durable enough to take a beating from dog nails and general wear and tear. It's naturally mold and mildew resistant and anti-microbial.
How is cork sustainable?
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Chillin' in my corky crib |
The cork oak tree must be at least 20 - 25 years old before the first cut is made to its bark and, after that, the cork can only be extracted once every 9 years. These trees live upwards of 250 years, continually regenerating bark. Cork flooring itself is actually a recycled by-product of cork bottle stoppers.
If you're in the market for flooring, I highly recommend cork!
I'll be finishing out Part 3 of this series next week when I write about how we tackled the hallway downstairs. You know, the one where the laminate was glued directly on to the Douglas Fir flooring (sacrilege!).
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Killing me salty - taking down the stumps
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Drilling the stumps |
Daniel was kind enough to take down the bush with a reciprocating saw. Seeing its remains in the yard made it look even more ginormous so we ended up taking it to the yard waste dump, even though all the branches barely fit in the back of Dan's Toyota Tundra (which is also ginormous and a gas hog - more on replacing the truck in a later post). Fortunately, the yard waste dump is only about 2 miles away, so we covered the load (and by we, I mean, he) and drove slowly to prevent lining the streets of Roslyn with evil, horrible, spiny leaves and branches along the way.
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Holy stumps! |
Apparently, this is actually a thing and there are quite a few articles you can find online about using Epsom salts to promote stump death. I won't go into too many details here, but I will report back as to how effective this method is. Basically, we drilled holes in the stumps, poured in salt, wet the holes to promote more absorption and covered the stumps with more salt. I'll repeat the salting process again in a few weeks.
I won't know how well this works until probably the spring, but I have hope that this will work. If it does, then it will be easier to dig out the dessicated root system and be done with it once and for all. Have any of you tried killing stumps using this method? If so, did it work for you?
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Birthdays, mourning and cake
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Butter, flour and parchment! |
My late husband was a master baker. Not professionally, just as a hobby, but he was quite spectacular at it. Birthdays were always a big deal around the house because it gave him the excuse to spend several days working on complicated new cake recipes.
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Whip it good |
I, on the other hand, never baked any cakes during the entirety of our marriage. That was his domain. But I did inherit a lot of knowledge just from listening to his many trials and tribulations, successes and failures. And, I inherited a kitchen full of professional baking equipment.
Last year, his death was too recent and too raw for us to have a proper birthday celebration for my daughter. I couldn't bring myself to make a from scratch cake so we went for something completely different. We went to the store and picked out a box cake and some pre-made frosting. It was so sacrilegious to the baking ethos of the house it was almost funny. We pictured my late husband rolling around in his cremation box. But, making anything better than that would have been just too heartbreaking.
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Not too bad! |
Was I melancholy while I was making it? A little bit, I have to admit. This is a significant milestone birthday - one of many events in my kids' lives that they will miss having their father with them. But, there's no way we could have done this a year ago. And, that really shows how far we've come along - with me stepping into this particular parental domain, and doing it with the happiness over the lives we have now.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Going Zero Waste
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Just the jugs, ma'am |
You are less likely to indulge in "aspirational recycling" where you throw everything that looks kinda recyclable into the bin and hope it gets handled downstream. Usually, what that means is that any contaminated recycling ends up contaminating the batch and the whole thing goes in the landfill. Neat, huh? I'm super guilty of aspirational recycling, so I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
Additionally, since your recycling is being stored and transported by you, you are going to make damn sure it is clean. No, limp-wristed, half-asseded swirling out of the containers before tossing it in the bin. That tuna can is gonna be clean before it goes in my trunk. Unclean recyclables is one of the many reasons that municipal recycling is being cut down at the knees - there's no foreign market for our dirty crap.
On the other hand, not having curbside recycling makes it super tempting to just throw everything in the trash. I am in no way tempted to do this - I have nervous fits throwing out recyclables. Which leads me to The Consumer's Dilemma (channeling Michael Pollan here). Kittitas County has an abysmal recycling program. The only things we can recycle here are:
- cardboard
- plastic pop bottles and plastic milk jugs
- tin cans
- aluminum cans
- newspaper, magazines
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My favorite place to visit |
So, I'm going to be concentrating over the next few months on alternatives to throwing things in the waste stream, including composting. And, of course, I'll be sharing with you all what I'm doing for alternatives, what works, what doesn't and what totally sucks. Plus, peppering everything with information on the state of recycling in the U.S., just for your edification.
Friday, October 18, 2019
Natural flooring - no chemicals needed! Part 1
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Original carpeting |
Daniel and I decided to pull up the carpeting in the downstairs bedrooms to see what we had to work with. My hope was that there would be some magical hardwood floors down under there. That was the case in my 1956 Seattle home. In that house, it was an easy carpet removal and the underlying floor didn't even need refinishing. This was not the case in my Roslyn home.
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Vinyl under carpet pad |
I didn't want to get my hopes up as Daniel sliced through the vinyl to uncover all the newspaper. Fortunately, the vinyl flooring in both bedrooms was not glued down but was just laying directly on top of the newspaper. We weren't so lucky in the hallway leading to the kitchen where the vinyl was glued down directly to what was underneath (more on that later).
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1957 newspaper! |
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Douglas Fir! |
Unfortunately, there were a few spots in one of the bedrooms that needed repair and/or replacement, so that sent us on a hunt looking for reclaimed flooring from a few different reuse stores in Seattle. We ended up not being able to secure anything suitable in time and just got new Douglas Fir panels for the repairs.
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After sanding and repairs |
After the sanding, I vacuumed and cleaned the floors. I had already done a ton of research on what I wanted to do with the floors after they were sanded. I definitely didn't want to use any kind of polyurethane floor varnish or finish, even though it would look really cool. Every decision I made on making updates to this house would be non-toxic. I was determined to not compromise on anything.
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After the final coat |
The floors are still a little oily feeling a month later, but have dulled down to a nice color. I can do a non-toxic coat on top of it to give it more sheen, but my kids really love and prefer the rustic look. So, at this point, I'm just going to leave the floors as they are for now.
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The finished floors! |
What about the downstairs hallway, you ask? Well, the vinyl was glued directly on the Douglas Fir. We pulled up as much as possible but the hardwood was not salvageable, even with sanding. I'll be covering what we did as a temporary measure on Part 3, which is pretty exciting (to me) as well! I'll give you a hint - it was free and we used 100% reused materials.
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
It's apple season!
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Pic courtesy of 2CookinMamas |
So, what have I been doing with all those apples (besides just eating them) since I moved in at the beginning of October? Not enough to keep up!!
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Apples in the dehydrator |
2. Roasting - I've been roasting the tart apples alongside onions, sweet potatoes, carrots and a variety of meats like chicken and beer soaked brats (Oktoberfest!). I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of roasted apples, but I'm sure I'll keep trying. I think next time I'll add them later in the roasting time so they are not as squishy.
3. Canning - Next week I'll be making and canning apple butter in the slow cooker. I haven't done it yet because I haven't yet had the gumption to peel, core and cut 6+ pounds of apples.
4. Baking - In an effort to use up some apples, I embarked on making an apple cake last week. It didn't use up as many apples as I would have liked, but it was very good nonetheless! I'm planning on baking a Dutch Apple Pie this Friday, which I'm looking forward to!
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Apples! |
6. Finishing of the hogs - My friends (and ex-next-door-neighbors from Seattle) now own a small farm in Ellensburg. Among their many animals are four pigs that they are finishing on apples and other fruits. They've been making a weekly trip to come and grab all the dropped fruit from my yard, my next door neighbor and my boyfriend's apple trees. In exchange, I've been getting eggs from their chickens. There seems to be an imbalance in this deal, but I'm not going to point it out!
What's your favorite way to use apples?
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Keeping the old cars kicking
But, it does have a functioning air conditioner, radio and CD player!, cruise control and automatic windows and door locks. I've kept the exterior and interior pretty newish looking, so you wouldn't be able to tell that it's 17 years old. It has all wheel drive (AWD), which is worth something or other. This will be more useful the more time I spend crossing Snoqualmie Pass and hanging out in snowier territories than Seattle, which rarely sees snow.
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Luigi! |
Both my vehicles are 5-speed manual transmission, which is hard to come by these days and were actually difficult to get when I bought them (both were special ordered to get the manual transmission). This fact also makes them seems like relics from the ice age. They are, however, great conversation starters when I drive anyone around who is less than 35. Or European. Or both. Oh! And, more importantly. Both of my cars are paid off.
I took the CRV in to get emissions tested on it the other day. It passed, fortunately. I did find out that the state of Washington will no longer be requiring vehicle emission testing starting in 2020. The reasons for it are actually good:
1. The air is cleaner
2. Fuels are cleaner
3. Newer engines run cleaner
What underlies this good news is possibly some bad news. A 17-year-old car probably doesn't have a newer engine that runs cleaner (although I suppose it does compared to a classic car from the 60s), but then again most people don't keep their cars around for 17 years. Cars these days can run for 200,000 miles or more but the average American replaces their vehicle every 11.6 years.
I was actually surprised to hear this average because my experience with friends and family has been more like them replacing their cars on the 6 - 7 year average. The average has gone up, I think, because the cost of a new car has gone up faster than inflation over the years. I cannot even fathom spending more than $21,000 on a new car. And, even that seems ridiculously high.
How old are your cars (if you have any)? Do you buy new or used when you do replace a vehicle?
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Growing hops in high mountain country
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Centennial and Nugget hops |
Varietals
I picked out two different types of hops and purchased two plants of each, hoping they'd do well in this area:
1. Nugget Hops - Humulus lupulus 'Nugget', an American bred variety for use in brewing beer. It is a bittering type of hop that is used in all styles of beer.
2. Centennial Hops - Humulus lupulus 'Centennial', an American variety that was also bred for use in brewing beer. It is an aroma variety that is very popular in American craft ales, stouts and porters.
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The super grower! |
One of the Centennial hops plants is totally kicking the other 3 plants' asses and is almost twice as tall as the Nugget hops. It's fascinating to watch them grow - we will literally place a marker where the plant has reached and come back up to the mountains a few days later and it's grown a half a foot or more.
We have the hops set up on a drip timer since half the week they are left to their own devices.
Reuse, reduce, recycle
In order to support the four plants, Daniel built a trellis system out of leftover hog wire and wood from one of his construction sites. And, some of the drip lines are also leftovers from a landscaping job or two. The upgrades he's making to this house is being done predominantly with found or leftover building materials. I'll be showing you more of what he's doing over the next few months!
What about the beer?!
Well, ultimately, I'd like to dabble making my own beer. I'm not sure if that's going to happen this year or not, but I have the summer to start fiddling around with small batches before these hops are even ready for harvest. I have so many projects planned for the summer that the brewing might go on the back burner.
But, in the meantime, we'll be drinking a lot of beer as research while we're perfecting our hop growing techniques. Which basically seems to be - plant in ground and watch grow. At the very least I'll be drying this year's hops for future use.