On the bench

For a while now, I've had a couple of 7" by 7" by 7'6" softwood timbers sitting in the back garden generally getting in the way, waiting for a project to come along. Originally they were purchased locally via eBay for use as posts for one of the gates in the woodland, however I managed to source some decent galvanised gates cheaper than a set of softwood ones, therefore these sat to one side, reminding me that a use for them must be found!

Upon the northern side of Badger's Holt, we have a sizeable area which is to be maintained as a fire-break between the woodland and the adjacent farm which we call 'The Meadow'. It's not really much of a meadow in the true sense of the word, its more an area of the land which wasn't planted with trees and left to go fallow. It's heavily rutted and overgrown with a multitude of grasses around 2' to 4' high in places with brambles tucked away into the north western corner. Along the northern boundary there are two old ash trees which have suffered disease and/or lightning strikes in the past, and now the barren branches provide suitable perches for the pair of buzzards often seen. A scattering of hawthorn, elder and blackthorn bushes form a partial boundary between both ash trees, and provide a source of food and shelter for the badgers which live in an extensive sett which occupies an area of around 100 metres by around 25 metres at its widest point. Maintaining the Meadow as a fire break is not an issue for us as we plan to cultivate this area (to a degree at least) in the next year or so so that we can have a decent size parcel of land to grow fruit and vegetables for our own use, and maybe for bartering if the opportunity arises. Gem has plans for a sizeable part of this area to be turned over to the production of potatoes and carrots on a rotation (Porter has a two furrow plough which should be able to turn the sandy soil with ease, we just need a rotavator and cultivator and we should be all set), whilst I have been harbouring a desire to plant a few apple trees against our boundary with the farm, with maybe a couple of rows of hops if the location proves to be suitable.

Anyway, I digress...
The one outstanding feature of the Meadow which makes it such a highlight of Badger's Holt has to be the view:

The morning after the first night I slept in the wood, I made myself a mug of Oxo on the embers of the dying fire and wandered out through the trees towards the blazing sun until I reached the edge of the meadow, where I sat in the very spot above, for an hour or so marvelling at aerobatics of the two buzzards soaring over the valley below. After spending many hours in this spot since, it seemed only fair to create a path to it along the verge of the woodland and install my very own perch....

The construction of the bench was really quite straightforward; The cross section of the post being 7", my plan was to have two posts side by side laid horizontally, making the thickness (depth) of the bench 14", with a total height of 21" from the base of the foundation which was to be made from sections of the posts. I cut 14" off each end of both posts, which provided four 14" by 7" blocks to bear the two seat beams.





Once everything had been cut and transported down to the woods, I needed to strim a decent pathway to get the materials to where they were needed through the undergrowth.

Unfortunately, there is currently no tractor access to this part of the woodland, so Porter took a well deserved rest:

As you can see, it looks exactly how you'd expect a field which hasn't been mowed in fifteen years to look!




Once I'd strimmed out a path and identified any potentially ankle-twisting ruts, I brought up the materials and began to sink the two bearing blocks into the sandy soil to around 4" below ground level. Based upon my previous experience when excavating post holes earlier in the year, this was completed in a jiffy.

Once I was certain the bearing blocks were even and level, the simple building-block construction rattled on towards completion:

As you can see, it was a simple and straightforward project. The majority of the graft involved with this was carrying the materials through the woodland to the site, and cutting the beams to size. In future I may drill down through the beams and into the uppermost blocks on both size and drive a dowel in to prevent any movement, but to be honest the weight is sufficient that I think it'll hold as it is.
A simple tidy bench built from £15 worth of fence posts.....

Hop Growing 2013

Although not a directly woodland-related post, hop growing has been something that has interested me for a while since becoming a home brewer. I pride myself on the fact that I brew my own ale outdoors (weather permitting) using only British hops, malted barley and Severn-Trent's finest H20 to recipes that are either my own creation, or inspired by ales that I know and love. Whilst I don't plan to grow and malt my own barley (not just yet at least), I have quite grown fond of the idea that I'd like to grow hops within areas of Badger's Holt that provide the right growing conditions to suit.

Before I jump feet-first into hop growing I thought I'd get the ball rolling by dipping my toe a little by growing a small selection of my favourite varieties in my own back garden, and as a result, this post explores my experience in this little foray. I also hope that this post will help my Antipodean brethren; Mr Nick Simmons, with whom I studied/drank with at university, to grow hops down-under.

Back in late March, I placed an order with the good folks at Castle Farm Hop Shop; http://www.hopshop.co.uk/, for three hop rhizomes; one each of Fuggles, Wye Challenger and East Kent Goldings. Within a week they had been delivered and were subsequently stored in the fridge until the weather permitted planting. In the interim, I trawled the forums such as www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk and www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk to soak up as much knowledge as I could about the care and maintenance of these wonderful plants.

Whilst I didn't take any photographs of the hop rhizomes in their dormant state, they don't look too dissimilar to a strawberry plant by virtue of the fact that all of the energy required to kick-start the plant on it's journey to production is stored within a small mass of long hairy roots. The root system which develops from the rhizome does reach quite a depth, and will eventually spread laterally as well, hence why they prefer deep and well drained soils.

In order to provide my plants with the very best start, I excavated a hole around a spade's width and depth, and mulched in some freshly rotted manure into the base of the hole, before carefully placing each rhizome into their respective holes and back filling with soil. Within two weeks, my initial work had been rewarded with the sight of leaves! (Please excuse the poor state of the soil: its not the best available in South Derbyshire.)

As time passed, the hops began 'searching' for a substrate to climb. In normal circumstances, the hop shoots are trained vertically up lines of twine which are attached to frames constructed of chestnut. Unfortunately, my garden is compact and bijou, so I couldn't get away with a network of hop poles and twine, so I had to settle for the following configuration (shown in late June)

In order to achieve maximum growing space, I installed two lines of twine at approximately 45 degrees from each plant in both directions, halfway along which, I added a short line perpendicular to the main line to add more space. In hindsight, I could have added more lines between and the hops would have easily taken to them and possibly provided more cones.In some cases, the hops grew beyond the length of the twine, and had to be looped back upon themselves which created very bulky hop vines. In the case of the East Kent Goldings, they eventually grew so far that they made good use of the trellis atop the fence along one side of the garden.

It should be noted that the hop shoots are to be trained clockwise around the twine, and it makes sense to do this every couple of days as my hops were growing around 1"-2" per day, and come early August, the hops plants were starting to show a fair amount of small young cones:
At this point in time, the weeks seemed to flash past and the hops really started producing an abundance of cones on all plants, with Fuggles the clear heavy-cropper, followed by East Kent Goldings and Wye Challenger in a close third.

Fast-forward to September 7th; Harvest Time!

Once a reasonable period of dry weather has played out, and the hop cones start to feel light and papery as well as exhibiting a slight tinge of brown with bright yellow Lupin (a pollen-like powder) within, they are ready for picking.

 
I chose a warm afternoon at the outset, which quickly turned to a thunderous downpour by the time I was picking from the last plant, but it made little difference to my mood as I was grinning from ear to ear when the Fuggles plant produced two full-sized punnets like this.

My green/wet weights for this years harvest were:

Fuggles: 547 grams 
East Kent Goldings: 447 grams
Wye Challenger: 345 grams

Based upon an 80% loss of mass upon drying, this should provide me with the following dry weights before storage;

Fuggles: 109 grams 
East Kent Goldings: 89 grams
Wye Challenger: 69 grams

Once picked, I readied my drying rack ready for drying in the Oast House (read; loft).

I picked these trays up off eBay (again), for a couple of quid each if I remember rightly. They tend to be used for chitting seed potatoes, but they're ideal for drying onions and garlic once picked, so I see no reason why they won't work for drying hops.

Once picked, I spread the hop cones out evenly over the base of each tray, shortly before labelling them and stacking them ready for taking up to the loft.

With any luck, after a week of drying with a gentle shake to turn the cones over every day, I should have hops ready to brew with. I'll keep you posted with Part 2 in the next few weeks.....The brew day!