Recent content by mlsuggs

United States of America. Thanks!

I'm in! Thanks!

That would be me, from Maryland. So far, I'm happiest with the winter barleys, for production volume; Maris Otter and/or Halcyon seem quite happy here, less the terrible winter we had this year. The jury is out on the spring barley (Hana)--although the Conlon seemed to do fine. And there's...

I ended up with about 5.5 pounds from just shy of 64 sqft of M.O./Halcyon. My Hana was being grown up from 5g of seed, I got maybe 100g or so. And my Bere tripled in volume, up to about 150g. I'm tilling up a bit of field (probably about 600 sqft) for this year's winter barley, and everything...

In order, yes, and no. Hops are remarkably tenacious little plants. As long as the rhizomes a) had a "sprouting node" (not necessarily sprouts), and b) were flexible (not brittle), there's a very good chance they'll sprout. They might take a little while longer than otherwise, but don't...

(tl;dr) In short, over time, yes, it matters. (long answer) I was doing a bit of research a few years ago into something unrelated, and uncovered an interesting database of Russian tax records, dating from before the 14th century through the 19th century (earlier was spottier, later records...

Spring updates from my end of the world: I've got 32 sqft each of Halcyon & Maris Otter (winter varieties). I had been worried about winterkill, as they looked pretty sorry coming out of our unusually harsh winter; they seem to be bouncing back pretty well. Halcyon is starting to head (I can...

Also fascinated to see the tasting results. I love experiments like these; maybe one day I'll have the time to perform them! One set of points I *can* make, though: American 2-row is typically spring barley, and can be any of a number of barley cultivars; Golden Promise is a spring 2-row...

Yeah, my Spring barley had much lower yields than my winter barley (about 25-50g for the spring, versus almost 250g for the winter). Probably related to the longer growth period/more established root system in the winter barley; it's got all winter to "settle in". So, my winter barley was...

Okay, this year's iteration is off and running! SWMBO "sacrificed" one of our garden beds to the barley (with the understanding that I'll be building an additional one to expand the garden), and I got the winter barley varieties planted (Maris Otter and Halcyon). From the 5g packets I got...

That was something I also saw with my barley--even the M.O. only got up to about 2ft tall, maybe a little more. Lots of commercial wheat planted hereabouts, tho, and it appears to be largely the same-ish height as my stuff, so I'm not worried. --Misha

I can see that being a possibility--my winter varieties were "mowed" by deer, back in the fall; it didn't seem to hurt them at all... In other news, I've harvested my grains. Starting with 5g each of Maris Otter, Halcyon, Bere, and a mystery barley*, I ended up with about 250g each of Maris...

Wow! What a difference between Canada and the middle Eastern Seaboard: my Hana is almost done putting out its seed-heads. I was able to sow it two months ago, on March 24th; it might have germinated a little better had I put if off a week or two--or maybe not, I really don't know. My Maris...

Yup, I'm on the same road--trying to cut out as many "inputs" as I can get away with. :) I've got 10 rhizomes of 4 hops varieties (4 Cascade, 2 ea. of Willamette, Sterling, and Magnum), plus building up the grains... Do you have a scythe? If so, where did you get it? I'm looking to get...

Ha! I'm retired Navy. I've occasionally been known to get some blood in my coffeestream. :) Our coffee grounds are going into the compost pile right now; come this fall, I'm planning on raiding the compost bin for top-dressing for the hops, and there's certainly no reason I can't spread...