Hop harvest!

I'd read that hops don't really produce much until the second year, however mine grew clear up the tall side of our house, about 30 feet, by August and produced a 5 gallon bucket of hop cones in September!
It's hard to know when to harvest but when it seemed right (when the cones are papery) I called upon my assistant brewers, Tristan and Sofia, to help me bring in the harvest.
First I cut down the twines on which the hop vines (called "bines") had grown and then separated the varieties of bines into separate bins.  I put them on a large sheet in the family room.
Then we went to work picking the cones off of the bines.  It's tedious work and the bines are prickly but Tristan and Sofia were real troopers.

Growing my own hops

Tired of always paying good money for ingredients I can grow myself, I decided after much consideration to plant my own hops.
Armed with information on how to grow them (especially how to give them enough space to grow), I headed over to Bader Brewing and bought 3 rhizomes in April when they arrived.  I decided to grow the 3 varieties that I've used most:  Northern Brewer (English), Hallertau (German) and of course Cascade (US).
I planted each rhizome about 3 feet apart on the South side of our house.  I strung 2 strings of twine for each plant up to the roofline (about 30 feet) and fertilized the plants well and kept them watered.